Lucky Hit 24

Why should you bother?

Good customer service is the life blood of any business. New customers are important but good customer service will help generate customer loyalty and repeat business. With every satisfied customer your business is likely to go on and secure many more customers through recommendations and if you do not take proper care of your customers there is probably a competitor waiting in the wings that will.

A customer satisfaction survey will help by not only identifying problem areas but will also demonstrate to your customers that you care and are proactive in looking for ways to improve the service that you provide.

Where do you start?

Objective – Before you start compiling your survey consider what the objectives of the survey are, in that way you will remain focused and find it easier to decide what questions to ask.

Analysis – In addition to the objectives consider how you will analyze the answers having completed the survey.

Keep in mind that ‘closed’ questions (where the respondent is asked to choose from a limited number of responses) are easier to analyse than ‘open’ questions (where the respondent can reply in anyway they want).

Much will depend on the predicted volume of respondents, the higher the volume the more important it is to have an easy method of analysing the results.

Opportunity – As well as obtaining valuable market research data keep in mind that customer surveys are also a good way to publicise aspects of your service that your customers may not be aware of.

After you have drafted your survey read through the survey from a market research view point and check that you are asking the right questions in the right way and that with the feedback information you will be able to properly analyze the data allowing you to make informed decisions.

Then, from a marketing view point read through the survey, confirm that you have phrased each question so that every opportunity has been taken to promote your business?

The ideal question will perform the following three functions:-

• Market research – provide valuable feedback to help you improve your customer satisfaction levels and in turn your business
• Marketing – promote aspects of your business
• Information/Education – advertise a service that you provide that your customers may not have been unaware of

For example:- Do you find the in-store baby changing facilities useful?

In asking this question the store will hopefully not only receive useful feedback on the baby changing facility but they will also promote the store as being a child-friendly and caring store even to those the customers who do not actually require the facility.

Warts and all – to benefit most from a customer survey you need to avoid the temptation, in any way, of attempting to sugar coat the survey.

A well designed customer satisfaction survey will enable you to identify problems so that they can be addressed; regular customer satisfaction will prevent complacency and give you early warning on where you might be losing out to your competitors initiatives.

What are the questions you should ask?

Although it is a given that each business is likely to have specific and unique factors that are important in providing good customer services there are common areas that are relevant to all businesses be they a physical store, online internet store or a service industry. The following are some key areas to providing good customer service.

Communication – What do you do to make it easy for your customers to communicate with you?

When customers telephone are their calls answered quickly; are their enquiries about products or services handled properly? A good business will make every effort to ensure that whatever the customers query it is resolved by the right person, quickly, politely and fairly.

If there are reported problems that cannot be resolvable immediately do you promise to respond in a given time period and do you deliver on your promise?

Use a customer satisfaction survey to ensure that all your staff are considered by your customers to be knowledgeable, courteous and helpful.

Location – Do your customers find it easy to visit you, if a physical bricks and mortar store, is it conveniently located with good access?

Making it pleasant, making it easy – For an internet business it is important to ensure that your website is easy to use and aesthetically pleasing.

Regardless of the store being a bricks and mortar or purely online web based store, is the store properly laid out and can your customers find what they need and is there sufficient detailed information and help on hand to explain how a particular product works?

The right quality products – In addition to measuring the quality of the service that you provide you should ensure that the products and services that you provide do in fact match your customers’ requirements.

Value for money – Cheap or expensive is rarely a good measure, value for money is.

Do your current customers consider the products you sell or the services you provide as value for money, if not, why not?

Speed and attention – Regardless of the type of business most customers will want to be dealt with quickly but attentively.

Are you doing everything you can to avoid delays?

A good business will try to treat each customer as an individual, does yours? Attention is appreciated but it needs to be followed up with a quick and satisfactory resolution to the query.

Demographics and Specific issues – Take the opportunity to profile your customers, for example where do they live and what is their age group?

The more knowledge you have of your customers the more information you will have to better target your business.

As part of the survey allow your customers the opportunity to highlight any problems that they may have and provide you with contact details so that their problems might be later addressed and their concerns followed up.

What next?

Once the survey has been completed analyse the results.

Trends – Identify common and specific areas where the service is failing your customers.

Ask yourself if any criticism is valid and is there anything that can be done to resolve or minimise the problem?

Training – Are the staff properly trained and do they have sufficient knowledge?

If customer service training programs have been implemented have they improved the customer experience?

Follow-up – If a customer has raised a specific issue through completing a survey ensure that they are contacted and that their complaint is properly addressed.

Do not lose a customer by squandering an opportunity to resolve a problem.

Continuously Monitor – Make changes and then measure by issuing further surveys.

If you are concerned about customer satisfaction and would like to view a sample survey for a store that will demonstrate some of the above advice please view the Sample Customer Survey

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