The definition, primary types, and operation of customer satisfaction surveys will all be covered in this text. We will also go over how to compute various indices and the primary benefits of carrying out this kind of survey. Let’s begin!
What is customer satisfaction research?
In a very simplified way, a customer satisfaction survey is a survey to gather people’s opinions about the relationship between them and your company.
As you can imagine, a survey can cover many different topics, including:
- the quality of its products;
- the quality of service during the sale;
- the quality of shipping, for those who work with online stores;
Whenever you’re thinking about a customer satisfaction survey, it’s important to know exactly what you want to ask – that way, you don’t leave people confused when it’s time to ask. Plus, mapping out each specific point is a way to understand exactly how your customers feel about each part of your business.
It is through a customer satisfaction survey that your company learns the opinion of the target audience, builds diagnoses and creates more effective communication and a value proposition.
In addition to understanding the focus of your research, it is important to highlight that there are several types of satisfaction surveys, and it is important to use the methodology that best suits your goals.
What is a customer satisfaction survey for?
There are different uses for a customer satisfaction survey – but the first concept that needs to be clear is that this tool will greatly help you understand what consumers think of your brand (and this influences terms such as loyalty, retention and attracting new consumers).
In practical terms, anyone carrying out a satisfaction survey can:
- assess whether it is meeting people’s expectations;
- identify failures in service and other processes quickly and correct them;
- create a long-term strategy to understand how people’s satisfaction changes over time;
- make people feel heard and valued;
- make safer decisions based on people’s opinions;
How to conduct a customer satisfaction survey?
You must prepare your customer satisfaction survey carefully if you want to run a successful one. A few actions must be followed in order to do this.
- Define the objective of your research, understanding which specific area or service of your company will be taken into account;
- Choose a type of research that is compatible with what you want to measure (and we will talk about some types of research in a moment);
- Create clear and easy-to-answer questions; using numerical scales, “yes and no” or alternatives helps people to engage with the research;
- Identify the right time to conduct customer research, understanding the profile of those who will respond and the time/date to approach them;
- Understand which is the best contact channel to carry out your research, between face-to-face conversations, SMS, email or even self-service kiosks;
- Know how to count the results properly.
- Understand how to interpret the results to generate strategies to improve your activities, taking into account what was exactly measured in the research.
Which inquiries should be included in a survey on customer satisfaction?
As you can read above, knowing what questions to ask is one of the most important aspects of a good customer satisfaction survey. That’s why it’s important to start with an objective – and in this part of the text, we’ll present some examples of simple questionnaires based on common objectives.
Among them, we can mention:
- quality of product or service;
- customer service;
- capacity of distribution/logistics channels;
- performance of communication channels.
To evaluate a product or service
Among the questions to properly evaluate a product, there are examples such as:
- Are you satisfied with our product/service?
- Which aspects of the product or service do you think are most valuable?
- Did our product or service live up to your expectations, in your opinion.
To evaluate the delivery of the order
People often criticize logistics by criticizing the entire product – which is something you need to know how to separate. Some questions about logistics include:
- Was the order delivered within the estimated time?
- Was the order delivered correctly and as you requested?
- Was communication about delivery status clear and helpful?
- Are you satisfied with the delivery options offered (times, delivery methods, etc.)?
How to approach customers for a satisfaction survey?
Knowing the right time to speak is sometimes as important as what you are going to say, isn’t it? Especially when we are talking about customer satisfaction surveys, which in many cases are a favor that people do for your company.
Therefore, it is important to know when and through which channels it is best to approach people to find out their opinions.
To do this, it is important to know the client in depth, in order to identify:
- the best survey format;
- the best time for the survey to be sent;
- the most appropriate language.
So, before conducting a customer satisfaction survey, it is important to have a prior study of your audience. Looking at metrics on social media or visits to your website can be a very useful way to find some clues, by the way.