There’s no better way to gauge the quality of a company’scustomer experience than with acustomer satisfaction survey. It can take the form of a questionnaire, and collects customer opinions on various aspects of the company’s services. A customer satisfaction survey can also be used to assess the relevance of a new campaign or product/service launch. However, companies that try this policy to assess the level of customer experience must follow certain recommendations. These will enable the company to carry out a conclusive customer satisfaction survey.
Determine the purpose of your satisfaction questionnaire
The first step in any customer satisfaction survey is to clearly define your objectives. It’s important that the questionnaire serves a specific purpose for the company. Otherwise, it’s highly likely that your questions will go off in all directions, and that your study will end up being of no real interest to you or your customers. The clarity and precision of your questionnaire’s purpose will have a direct impact on each customer’s responses and on your results.
Generally speaking, when conducting customer satisfaction surveys, companies have a number of specific aims in mind. The first is to gain a better understanding of the customer base. Getting to know the people to whom you’re offering your service or product is the first step to better understanding their expectations and needs.
The second type of objective in a satisfaction questionnaire that often comes up is measuring the level of customer satisfaction with the experience offered by the company. This enables the company to assess not only the impact, but also the performance of a product or service.
Another type of objective is the search for dissatisfaction. In this type of survey, the company solicits the help of its customers to improve its service. It tries to question the user experience in order to identify areas for improvement.
Finally, a customer satisfaction survey can be carried out with the aim of understanding customers. That is, to gather their perception of a service or product, and their use of that service. Be careful not to combine all these objectives in a single survey, especially if you’re using a conversational robot for distribution.
Customer satisfaction survey: defining the target
For all competitive companies, the customer satisfaction survey must follow certain standards. To do this, you need to ask yourself a number of important questions. These concern the essential elements to be evaluated during the survey. The objective may be, for example, to get an idea of customer satisfaction with the services offered by the company. You may also choose to carry out a customer satisfaction survey to assess a specific element (reception, delivery, the company’s after-sales service). As you can see, the target audience depends on the survey’s objective.
Identifying the target audience for a customer satisfaction survey is the key to greater efficiency. You can choose to target all your customers or just a segment of them, depending on your objectives. For example, you could address the interview questionnaire to your customers who use certain products or services in a specific way.
The target of the customer satisfaction survey will also take into account the scope of the questionnaire. That said, you can plan the questionnaire on a national, regional or even city-wide scale. In other words, it’s essential to think about the scope of your customer satisfaction survey in the same way as for conventional surveys. It’s also worth noting that, with the advent of digitalization, modern companies are generally opting for online customer satisfaction surveys.
Customer satisfaction survey: define the frequency
For a customer satisfaction survey, it’s also important to define a periodicity. Depending on your business model and objectives, you may choose to conduct a one-off or periodic interview. For example, to evaluate the customer experience following a purchase process, you can plan an interview questionnaire. Alternatively, the company may choose a different monthly frequency, depending on its objectives. A monthly customer satisfaction survey can provide a customer satisfaction index. Taking these parameters into account, you can use an online survey tool such as a chatbot to automate the discussions. This will save you time and ensure optimal results.
Drawing up a customer satisfaction survey
A customer satisfaction survey will be deemed effective when the questionnaire administered provides a certain level of comfort for the customer. Similarly, the interview must be relevant to the company’s interests. It has to be said that, if the questionnaire is well thought-out, the company can expect greater profitability and increased brand awareness.
Be clear and precise
The questionnaire for a customer satisfaction survey should be neither too complex nor too vague. In fact, the customer doesn’t have to make any effort to understand the information the company needs. Better still, it’s not up to the respondents to choose the response methods. Anticipate this and make suggestions to them. Of course, your questionnaire questions must be perfectly comprehensible. Overly technical terms should be avoided when conducting a customer satisfaction survey. The same applies to jargon related to your profession. You’ll then have precise answers for the questionnaire you administer.
Choose the type of questions
The results you get from your customer satisfaction survey will depend on the questions and the way they are asked. For this reason, structure must also be taken into account when drafting your survey questions. Good wording means anticipating possible answers. This will lead you to choose between different marketing techniques.
These include open-ended questions. Here, respondents are free to provide answers of any kind to the questions posed. Closed questions, on the other hand, are those for which the results are almost imposed. For this type of question, the questionnaire stipulates the number and type of answers. Here, the dialogue is closed, and the customer can easily get the impression of being interrogated. For this reason, it is not advisable to overuse this type of question.
For the customer satisfaction survey questionnaire, the company can also opt for yes/no or true/false questions. Here, the answers are simply a choice between one or other of the two possibilities.
We also distinguish between single-answer multiple-choice questions and multiple-answer multiple-choice questions. The wording of the question must be clear and precise. This is what will enable the customer to give conclusive answers.
Survey duration
A customer satisfaction survey should be kept short enough to avoid boring the target audience. The experience the customer will have during this questionnaire phase must be a good one. This will ensure that the results are truly worthwhile for the company.
So keep in mind the objectives of the survey, and stick to them when drafting the questionnaire. Don’t stray from the essential. This objective should serve as a compass for every question you write. It’s an important parameter for obtaining truly usable results from satisfaction surveys.
The rating system
Satisfaction surveys with a rating system are generally more effective than those with a checkbox system. Asking the customer to rate a service or the company is clearer, and helps the company to make a better assessment. In fact, it is on this basis that companies produce an overall rating following satisfaction surveys.
Finally, don’t forget to leave a free comment area at the end of the interview questionnaire. This is a way of letting respondents express their requests and observations.
Define a distribution method for the survey
Designing a survey questionnaire is all very well. But you still have to decide how to submit it to your customers. There are a number of ways in which companies can easily achieve their survey objectives. A company can propose a questionnaire using a paper form to be filled in, carry out the survey by telephone, or send the questionnaire by e-mail to some of its customers. These are widely-used methods of distributing surveys, but they are not always effective because they are time-consuming.
The most recommended way to conduct a survey quickly and reliably is to use a chatbot. A chatbot is an instant messaging robot that enables companies to improve their customer relations. A bot is able to submit a questionnaire to thousands of a company’s customers simultaneously. Once the questionnaire has been distributed, the chatbot is able to help the company analyze the results of the customer satisfaction survey.
