Customer Survey Best Practices
Kansas City MO—“Here’s my 30 second reply. It is a cost effective way to:
• stay in touch with customers,
• follow-up without being obtrusive,
• show we care, and
• provides opportunity to cross sell products.
“As far as how we use it.”
“We share all responses with our staff in our daily meetings—both positive and negative. It gives staff a better understanding of how our customers perceive us, which I think is KEY. We assume we always know what customers think, but we don’t really.”
Denton, TX—“Perhaps the biggest benefit to us has been the feedback I can give to my staff, both collectively and individually. I generally review results of the survey with the staff in our daily Work in Process (WIP) meeting. When an individual survey response praises an employee, I frequently will simply share that with the employee. We did have one response praising our shop dog. I did not review it with him as he would have expected a dog treat.
“We have been fortunate that there has been very little negative feedback that required a change on our part. The negative responses do allow us to give proper feedback and follow up with customers. Overall, we have achieved outstanding results in our customer satisfaction. This is a confirmation to us that our business and customer service policies are sound.”
Best Practice in Customer Surveying Summarized:
• Leverage electronic surveying for speed and convenience.
• Keep surveys short and to the point.
• Don’t badger repeat buyers by over surveying.
• Keep the process safe and inviting for candid feedback.
• Automate the setup and survey launch process whenever possible.
• Share results with your team.
• Follow-up with customers in timely manner.
• Surveying should be a process and not an event.
