Dig For Detail - Summarise for Action

Smart businesses regularly canvass information from their customers. Some do this as part of the account management process; others conduct a formal customer survey. You need to decide which option, or combination of options, works best for your business.

Going Formal? – Then Construct a Questionnaire

• Keep your questions simple.
• Aim to keep the questions constant – so that you can compare results over time.
• Make sure that you capture numeric information – but keep the scale to an even number so that people have to decide.
• Make sure you allow space for verbatim comments. This gives two benefits:
  - People get a chance to give you the details behind their scoring so that you get a chance to fix problems.
  - When people give you compliments, the testimonial is written already – all you need is permission to publish.
• Select a technology that is appropriate to your customers – paper or email based forms still work well. Online surveys are great for some customer groups.

Conduct the survey

• Give your customers time to respond and, if you are running a semi-annual or annual survey, issue gentle reminders.
• Consider a prize draw as an incentive to respond – you know your customers best.
• Remember, the response rate is in itself a customer comment!

Summarise the Results

• Tabulate the findings. Plot graphs of the numbers.
• Look for similarities and differences between customer types

Dig-For-Detail

• Review the results and try to understand what lies underneath the feedback you are getting.
• A team meeting could make great sense at this point.
• Go back to customers and ask for more details if required:
• If they are unhappy, it shows that you care.
• If they are happy, you can thank them for their feedback and ask permission to use it in a testimonial.

Summarise the Review

• Identify the root causes of any deficiencies.
• Create an action plan to rectify failings.
• If everything is really positive – go for the PR.

Repeat the Survey – when appropriate

• Look for trends.
• Confirm that your actions have been effective.