Customer survey is an easy way to have your customers give you compliments-in writing.
An occasional survey sent to your customers –once or twice a year– is a passive, inexpensive way to remind people to send you some business. That’s what you can expect most of the time. Yes, the survey is a real survey, but its impact often is as good as a direct solicitation. What the survey ostensibly is designed to measure is your customers’ opinions about doing business with your company and their perceptions about your firm’s level of performance in meeting their expectations and delivering what was promised.
Key considerations for a Good Survey
Key considerations in developing a good survey, one that’ll merit a reasonable level of response, are that the questions are simple and unambiguous, the responses should be multiple choice with an option for the recipient to write a comment, and the recipient can complete it in a minute or two.
If done entirely online, the survey should be simple to navigate through and send the responses.
If done in the mail , the survey should include a postage-paid reply envelope or give the recipient the option to take the survey online.
Surveys can be done over the telephone, of course. but some folks won’t welcome the interruption, though friendly customers are usually quite happy to help if it’s not an inconvenience to them at the moment.
Yes. surveys are a great way to command a little respect from customers and earn you some professionalism points. But the real reason of conducting surveys is to earn you compliments. And customers who give you compliments are much less likely to “shop,” remain loyal even when price might become an issue (and you come up with a workable solution), and, with the customers’ permission, you build a collection of short testimonials for subsequent marketing and advertising.