Don’t Be the Last to Know: The Case for Customer Surveys

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 holes in your customer service that you’re unaware of? The best way to obtain this type of info is to just ask them! Developing a thoughtful customer survey can be a super tool to help you learn answers to questions you didn’t even know you had!

So why ask at all?

The main reason to ask is to head off potential problems and discover which of our customer service ways are working and which are not. Most of the time, we never get negative feedback unless there’s an egregious error. A lot of people won’t bother; they’ll just look somewhere else. In addition to that, they’ll probably tell their friends and family about their experience with your company. Some might even write a negative review on Yelp or Google Local. And their story will have a lot of weight—even among people who aren’t in their social circles. As outlined by a study by Erik Qualman of Socialnomics, nearly three-quarters of U.S. consumers say they trust the info offered by total strangers online! Reported by CustomerThink.com over 50 percent of the buying public have issues or complaints with the products and services they purchase. Doing a survey that can help you identify and correct mistakes can be the difference between retaining a client or not—and getting a good review or a bad one.

What type of questions are the most effective for customer survey?

Know what you want to learn from your survey, and be sure that you ask questions that require more than a numerical value or checking a box. Don’t ask “Yes” or “No” questions because they don’t give you enough specifics. Permit your respondents to hold court on their encounters with your business.

How exactly should you hold the customer survey?

There a variety of ways to conduct a survey. However, if possible, the best way seems to be via an online survey, thus giving the respondent a good chance to think about and form well thought-out answers, something that might not occur through a phone call or personal contact. Consider offering a bonus for filling out your survey, and try to be timely as to when you send it. If you are new to this, consider using a company that specializes in this type of data collection, such as SurveyMonkey. However you accomplish it, getting a read on the way your customers view your company is invaluable data to possess.