To make a business grow, positive customer feedback is key. By keeping them satisfied, your customers may start building trust with your brand (whether product or service), and then spread the word about it to more people. This would earn you an advantage as a business owner because the public would see your brand in a positive light, regardless if they buy from you or not.
One way to keep track of customer feedback is through a Customer Satisfactory Survey. It’s a set of questions about what customers think of your product or service, and if they’ll recommend it to other people. It has been around for a long time, even online, thanks to online survey tools and builders.
Making a Proper Survey
As business owners, we must value our customers’ time and not make them answer long surveys. The number of items must be kept the fewest possible, and questions should be straightforward that would get concise answers. From the start, the goal should be clear so that the questions can be centered around that goal. That means unnecessary items should be eliminated, like the customers’ name, etc, if it doesn’t fulfil the goal of the survey.
Asking open-ended questions can give you a chance to hear your customer’s personal thoughts about your business, but it should be done in a non-intimidating manner. To do this effectively, progressive brief questions should be asked, until it reaches the point where customers can elaborate their answers. An example would be a yes or no question followed by a “Why?”.
It’s also important not to overwhelm or bombard your customers with several questions at the same time. Questions must be kept neutral to avoid sounding too biased. As for a scale-type survey, the scaling must be consistent because chances are customers would associate a certain number with a certain feedback, and changing the scales suddenly around the middle can get you “wrong” answers.
Effects of Customer Satisfactory Surveys
Depending on the type of survey, some customers may or may not be happy at all about it. 21% of Americans said they were too busy answering a time-consuming survey, 16% said the questions were too personal, 12% said it was too long, and 16% said they were inconvenienced. (Ironically, a survey was also used to obtain these answers).
But if a survey is made engaging, 18% said they would willingly answer it as long as it’s short, 10% said the survey must be interesting enough, and 13% said they should be rewarded after answering.
Researches on surveys have actually revealed that giving customers a bonus for answering surveys can increase response rates by 5% to 20%. Rewards can come in the form of a discount, giveaway, or an account credit. For business owners, be sure that the rewards or bonuses you give are something your business can afford.
Benefits of a Customer Satisfaction Survey
If you’ve made an engaging and effective survey, you can get clear feedback from your customers. This feedback can tell you if your product or service has a problem, and that gives you a chance to improve it. An effective survey also gives your customers a channel to express their thoughts about your business. Employees of your business can also benefit from surveys. If the survey includes questions about invoices, services, and the like, your employees would feel involved and it will provide them a chance for improvement in case it’s needed.
An effective customer satisfaction survey should also be able to highlight a business’s strengths and weaknesses. Business owners should see if a certain area of their product or service is weak, and from this, they can make adjustments to improve it.
Hearing your customers’ feedback and valuing them is important for your business. As long as you follow the principles of making an effective survey, your business would see significant progress. Allowing a room improvement can possibly unleash more potentials, making your business reach more milestones and see the growth you can only imagine before.
