3 Essential Strategies for Constructing a Customer Service Survey
Sometimes, whenever you pay for something, be it a service or a product, the business hands out a survey. You either fill it up or just leave it blank, probably depending on your mood. But does the completion of that survey rest solely on your mood on that particular instance? It could be, but maybe there’s another factor that also affects your motivation on finishing the survey: the kind of questions it includes.
On the other hand, if you’re running a business, you’ll be the one giving out surveys instead, and you don’t want your customers to do the same thing you did. If such a thing happens, it’s not because you brought it on yourself; it’s just that you had a poorly constructed survey. Surveys are very important for customer feedback, so instead of blaming karma, avert the possible crisis and make surveys that are useful in improving your business by following these tips.
Ask How or Why
Close-ended questions, those that can only be answered by yes or no or any other limited responses, can be helpful. However, just like the answers to them, the help and information they provide are mostly limited as well. After all, there isn’t much you can do with a yes or a no. Conversely, with open-ended questions—those that ask either why or how—you can get a lot of information that you can work on out of what your customers feel and think.
For example, you asked a customer whether they liked your product/service or not. If he or she answers yes, then that’s good; keep up what you’ve been doing right. However, if he or she answers no, then you better improve. On the other hand, if go beyond yes or no and ask why or how, you will find out what aspects of your product or service to maintain so that your customers will continually be satisfied, and what to either stop or do better to make them like whatever it is you’re selling or providing.
Don’t Tell Them Anything
It’s difficult to be impartial towards your business. After all, it’s your work and idea, and you’ve put a lot of time, money, and effort into it, so you’re definitely going to think it’s good. However, you give out surveys not to tell others of your enterprise’s merits, but for you to find out how it is faring and what you can and should do about it.
Therefore, when you make a survey, don’t add into the questions any statement that tell one of your business’s positive traits that are based on your personal opinion, as customers would either think that you’re putting words in their mouth or trying to influence their answer.
For example, you include on a survey this question: “What do you think of our fast and efficient products?” The question, instead of simply asking the customer for feedback, tries to tell the customer what you believe is true. This could either affect the customer into answering more positively, or make them feel either annoyed by a seemingly shameless plugin. Remember, a survey is not about what you think, but what the customer does.
It’s a Survey, Not an Essay
It’s never a bad thing to ask feedback from your customers. However, contrary to popular belief, you can have too much of a good thing. And surveys—good things—can become bad when overdone; either you have too many questions, or you ask too many questions that require long and detailed responses.
Surveys are helpful to you, but they can be bothering for your customers. The less of a nuisance and the easier to answer your surveys are, the easier they’d find it to answer them.
If you want or need to something, just ask—an overly simplistic mentality that won’t work when it comes to surveys. Ask smart, and you and your surveys won’t be left blank.
