Have You Heard What They’re Saying about Your Business?
Learning what your clients and customers really think about you can be both a fearsome and instructive thing. Doesn’t it just make sense to locate any problem areas or gaps in your customer service you’re not aware of? The simplest way to obtain this type of data is to simply ask them! Developing a thoughtful customer survey can be a super tool to help you learn answers to questions you didn’t know you had!
So why ask at all?
The primary incentive for a customer survey is to head off problems before they end up part of your reputation, and reveal ways to strengthen your service or products. Most of the time, we never hear about a dissatisfied customer: they’ll just look elsewhere. CustomerThink.com has determined that more than half of consumers have had issues and complaints with the products and services they’ve purchased. Developing a survey helps you find and rectify mistakes which might be the difference between holding onto a customer or not.
What sort of survey questions work best?
Make sure you have a clear objective to your surveys, and you ask questions that require more than ticking a box, or assigning a number to your query. Avoid “Yes” or “No” questions. Allow them to expand on their experience and feelings. (This can end up being a great way to collect testimonials!)
How exactly should you hold the survey?
There are a lot of ways to perform a survey. If possible, however, choose an an online survey, which gives the person answering it a decent opportunity to think about and form good responses, something that probably wouldn’t happen by using a phone call or face to face encounter. When possible, have an incentive for filling out your survey. If you require help with this, consider a survey company that does much of the work for you, such as SurveyMonkey.
