Surveys from your customers (or sondage auprès des clients in French) are amongst the most valuable pieces of information your business could ever receive. When created and delivered in the correct manner, the surveys that a business receives back from their customers can vastly improve how a company sells, markets, and provides service.
How to Deliver a Customer Survey
A problem that a lot of businesses face is getting their customers to respond to the customer satisfaction survey in the first place. Lengthy surveys are a hassle, and rating opinions on a scale from one to ten is hardly appealing. To get the most out of a customer survey, the right strategy must be used.
- Ask for help: Customers often feel compelled to help business, whether they are already happy with your company or have a few suggestions for areas of improvement.
- Tell a story: Share some information about a product or policy which is in the works or has just recently been released. Then ask the customer to share their opinion or to rate the newest product or policy change.
- Follow up: Customers who take the time to respond to a survey should be thanked – but an automated “thank you” hardly does the job. Follow up with a separate email which thanks the customer for his or her specific suggestion. Present a possible solution or offer the customer an exclusive discount on a future purchase.
But the survey itself is just part of the process. What a business chooses to do with the information received is a whole other matter. Wondering how you can maximize the results of your customer surveys? Below are some of the most beneficial ways your business can leverage your customer survey results:
Analyze Customer Satisfaction Levels
Many businesses will use online reviews and social media posts to try and get a realistic view of how satisfied their customers are with their service. There is one problem with this: you will rarely receive the full customer satisfaction spectrum with this shortsighted strategy.
When customers write reviews online, they are either:
a) Very happy and delighted by your service; or
b) Very upset, unhappy, and/or angry
What businesses then miss out on are the numerous valuable voices between these two extreme levels of satisfaction (or dissatisfaction). This is part of the reason why customer surveys are so valuable: they provide businesses with a full scope of where their business can make some adjustments or improvements – sometimes even in a real-time environment.
Improving Communication between the Business and the Customer
Today’s customer enjoys having real communications with the businesses they deal with. Your customer survey can help you take the communications between your businesses and your customers to the next level in a number of ways. The most obvious is finding out how your customers like to communicate with you – by phone, email, social media, or another method. The next is finding out which kind of communications or content they enjoy receiving from you. This can completely revolutionize how you deliver marketing materials and customer service to your customers.
Identifying Areas of Growth
When drafting your survey, strongly consider asking your customers what products and services they would like to see, or what you company should do next. Find out what the needs of your customers are and you can then design a solid future-focused business plan that will keep you and your customers happy.
