Making good use of customer survey information

Customer satisfaction surveys provide a company with information that they can utilize to improve customer loyalty and employee satisfaction. In order to achieve maximum benefit from customer satisfaction surveys, companies need to look beyond them as tools for comparing month-on-month performances. A customer survey, if it is not followed upon, will lead to a waste of the company’s resources and the customer’s time. Thus, it is important to have a program in place that helps to leverage the information generated by the customer satisfaction survey. Such a program should make use of clearly defined metrics, take steps to address customer concerns identified by the survey; introduce systems to ensure accountability of the customer-focused strategies; and review and assess the program.

It is important to have objective measures for judging customer satisfaction. This means that the metric used for measuring customer satisfaction should be owned by an individual who is responsible for the results thrown up by the metric. Personnel that cannot in any way make a difference to a survey result should not be held accountable even if it is the customer-facing staff. If the front-end is not apprised of customer grouses revealed by a survey, it will not be able to play its role in remedying it. A customer satisfaction survey throws light on the principal source of revenue for a company – the customer. Its usefulness increases if its treated as a KPI on par with financial indicators and the top management takes an active interest in reviewing it periodically.

Companies need to realize that customer satisfaction is dynamic and therefore it needs to pay attention to even those areas with which the customer is satisfied at present. Thus, a company should actively manage and promote customer satisfaction. One way of doing this is to link employee performance with the achievement of customer satisfaction targets. The speed with which issues thrown up by a survey are rectified has a direct impact on customer retention. In order to objectively assess a survey, one can take the help of an independent survey company. Also, a company needs to determine beforehand the triggers that demand an immediate response and be prepared to swing into action if trigger words such as “poor performance” and “disappointing” are detected in a survey.

Very often, a customer’s dissatisfaction stems not from slip-ups on part of the company but from a misunderstanding in terms of expectations and actual service. This can be resolved by explaining to the customer that the company is indeed fulfilling its obligations with respect to providing products and services and that the customer’s perceptions are unjustified. At the same time, this interaction with the customer can be used for discussing ways and means for providing an additional level of service. This scenario demands that the company staff interacting with the customers is fully aware of company policies as well as product and service details.