Article Submission

Why bother?
The life blood of any business is good customer service. New customers are important but good customer service will help generate customer loyalty and repeat business. With each satisfied customer your business will secure many more customers through word of mouth and you should always keep in mind that if you are not taking proper care of your customers there is always a competitor that will.
Customer satisfaction surveys 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 - Having completed the survey consider how you will analyse the answers.
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).
A lot will depend on the expected volume of respondents, the higher the volume the more important it is to have an easy method of analysing the results.
Opportunity ? Keep in mind that as well as obtaining valuable market research data customer surveys are also a good way to publicise aspects of your service that your customers may not be aware of.
Before you publish the survey confirm that the questions you have asked will provide you with market research data that when analyzed will help you 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?
By asking this question not only will the store receive good feedback on the facility they provide but they will also advertise their baby changing facilities and promote themselves as a family friendly store beyond those customers who have a specific need for the facility provided.
Warts and all ? to maximise the benefit from a customer survey you must be prepared to take criticism.
A customer satisfaction survey should be designed to identify any problem areas so that they can be fixed; conducting regular customer satisfaction will help prevent complacency and will also give early warning on where you may be losing business to your competitors initiatives.

What to ask?
Although 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 key areas to providing good customer service.
Communication - Are you confident that you 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, politely, quickly and fairly.
If a problem is not 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 helpful, courteous and knowledgeable.
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 a virtual business it is important to ensure that your website is aesthetically pleasing and easy to use.
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 ? Not only should you measure the quality of the service that you provide but you should check that the products and services that you market are what the customer wants and closely match their expectations.
Value for money ? Cheap or expensive is hardly ever a good measure, value for money is.
Do your customers associate your business with 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 to prevent any 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?
Understand your customers more and you will be able to better target your business.
Allow customers to highlight their specific problems and provide contact details.

What next?
Having completed the survey analyse the results.
Trends ? Identify specific and common areas where the service is found wanting.
Ask yourself if any criticism is valid, be honest to yourself, is there anything that can be done to properly resolve, or at the very least, minimise the problem?
Training ? Are all employees properly trained and do they have sufficient knowledge?
Where employee training programmes have been implemented have they had a positive impact on the business?
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 based on the survey results and then re-measure by issuing further surveys.
If you are interested in tracking customer satisfaction embrace the many benefits that the new breed of online survey software brings.

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