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22 PROCESS AND PRACTICE

OH NO,
A SURVEY!
How do you respond to survey requests? Do you click them away? Your
customers probably respond the same way when you send them a
work-related survey request. While it is these measurements that are so
important to the improvement of your services. How do you make sure
your customers provide the feedback you need?
When introducing a customer satisfaction survey, it only makes sense
to begin with the question: what do I want to measure? You determine
which parts of your services are the most important, what you want
to know about them and create a list of questions. Nevertheless, in
practice it proves to be diffcult to get people to respond and it takes
your department time to process all the information. What is going
wrong? This approach has you asking the right questions, but you are
missing the most important prerequisite: you are forgetting to think
from your customers perspective.
What is a logical survey moment?
It might be a bit much to posit that you are not thinking from
your customers perspective. After all, you send them as few surveys
as possible. Just the one per year, for instance, so as not to overwhelm
your customer. However, this assumption is not quite right and
does not get the desired results. You eventually send a huge list of
questions about all aspects of your services and receive hardly any
responses. For your customer, the threshold is high when faced with
a long survey to fll in higher than with several smaller surveys. It is
not that you approach your customer with as few surveys as possible,
but approaching your customer at the right time.
If a customer has just used your services, it will feel logical to them
to provide feedback. There is a reason to send him or her a (short)
survey and to ask about his or her experiences with the process: a
so-called process measurement. This measurement answers questions
such as, have we processed this call well? What did the customer
think about the communication regarding progress updates? You
can perform such measurements after completing a project for your
customer, for instance, or even after processing calls. Before you
introduce process measurements, you must frst map out how the
department handles contact with your customer: which services does
the customer use and which contact moments can we identify? This
measurement concerns a completed whole, so you can keep the survey
short while using open questions to gather higher quality input. The
customer will be more like to answer the questions and processing the
answers will not take much time.
When should you ask what?
A process measurement answers the question of whether you
are doing things well. However, you probably also want to know more
generally whether your customers are satisfed the answer to the
question: are we doing the right things? Your customer understands
that you can use recurring surveys to improve your services and is
happy to fll in a survey once a year. You do not need to send surveys
more often; your customers opinion of your services will not change
from month to month. Do think about when to send the survey: take
into account the holiday periods and make sure the survey does not
coincide with other instances of customer communication.
During the process measurement you ask specifc questions
about certain processes, so you are able to keep recurring customer
Text: Nienke Deuss
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PROCESS AND PRACTICE 23
satisfaction surveys brief. Such surveys answer questions like: are we
supplying the services that our customers expect? Are we focusing on
the right aspects of our services?
In these measurements, customers are often asked to supply
scores: how important does he or she fnd the service and is he or she
satisfed? This results in a matrix that helps you determine your most
important points of improvement.
How can you ask for feedback?
The easier it is for your customer to fll in the survey, the more
likely they are to actually do it. Printing, flling in and returning a Word
fle will not result in many responses, so try to think of ways to make
this simpler. Of course you can use a web form, but also consider using
quick surveys (about three questions) or likes. Answering a question
by clicking an option is easier than typing a response. For instance, you
will receive many more responses by providing only three buttons as
possible answers: .
Tip: the biggest threshold for your customer is actually starting the
survey. If you let customers answer questions on your website with a
single click, they are also more likely to answer the following question.
After all, they have already decided to help you with their frst click.
This means you can have a link on your site open a number of follow-
up questions. There is a good chance that your customer will also fll
these in.
Tip: do not ask unnecessary questions. Can you link the personal
information from your staff fle to the respondents email address? If
so, do not make the customer fll this in themselves.
What does your customer want to know?
Communication is very important, both before, during and after
the measurement.
Before: a customer who knows what you want to measure, as well as
the goal of the measurement, is more likely to fll in your survey. Use
existing communication moments to explain this and announce the
measurement, write a message for the newsletter and think of an
email footer. When you send the actual invitation, it is important to
manage expectations: does your survey comprise eight questions? Say
so in the invitation.
During: to make sure that the customer flls in the entire survey, it can
be useful to provide information about the progress while they are
taking the survey. Think, for instance, of a progress bar and completion
percentage at the top of the screen, or the number of the question as
it relates to the total number of questions. If the fnish line is in view,
the customer will probably complete the survey.
After: your customer will be curious about what is done with their
input. When the survey is completed, communicate what the next
steps are: when you will share the results, and whether the customer
can expect a response.
What does the customer expect afterwards?
It is important to communicate the results to your customer
after you have processed the answers. Your customer took the time
to provide input, and will appreciate it if you let them know that
you take their opinion seriously. Tell your customer what you will do
with the feedback. Discuss the results within your department and
try to connect concrete action points to the results. Approach your
most unsatisfed customers personally and ask them for additional
information. This provides more insight into why the customer is not
satisfed and will ensure the customer feels heard.
Tip: save the scores and answers per customer. This lets you compare
these over the years and refer to them when you contact the
customer.
Good results
Of course you cannot take absolutely everything into account,
and not every survey will be as easy to fll in. However, do take a
moment to consider how the customer experiences things when
creating your customer satisfaction survey. Think from your customers
perspective and who knows: maybe your survey will result in better
customer satisfaction rather than mere irritation.
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