Do You Use Customer Satisfaction Surveys?

Do you have customer satisfaction surveys in place? If you don't, we highly recommend that you do. In a recent report from Benchmark Portal, the top 3 post-call survey methods were:

1) Live telephone interviews 33.7%

2) Post-call IVR surveys 23.8%

3) Email surveys 15.8%

The significant findings as a result of this report include:

26.1% do post call surveys up from 19.6% in 2006

17.4% do not conduct any post call surveys, down from 25.8% in 2006

26% conducted surveys immediately after the call up over 50% from 2006

70.4% shared the survey reports with top management

63.4% agreed that agent training had a major impact on caller satisfaction

When asked when do you conduct your survey, the answers were:

Immediately after the call 26.0%

More than 10 days after 17.3%

2 day or less 14.4%

2-5 days 13.5%

5-10 days 7.7%

We don't survey 17.4%

The significant question for me was: Based on customer satisfaction survey inputs, your organization made the following operational improvements:

And the top 2 were:

Added, changed or improved training for agents 25.2%

Increased First Call Resolution 19.3%

When asked whether improvements to training programs resulted in improved caller satisfaction, 63.4% agreed with the statement.

In a survey of over 2000 senior human resource executives (Novations Group), 2 out of 3 organizations are experiencing growing demand for customer service training.

Do you survey your customers?

And then if you do, do you use that information to kick your customer service up a notch? I hope the answer to both of these questions is a big resounding 'yes.'

This goes back to previous articles on asking your customer. If you want to know how you are doing as a company; if you want to know how your customer service is being perceived; then ask your customer. Don't rely solely on metrics, but rather, remember that the best measure of how you are doing is available to you in your customer.

Our recommendation is for post call surveys to be within 2 days of the call. Beyond that it is a mere memory and people could tell you what you want to hear rather than what is true for them.

If you were to ask me a week later - unless it was a truly bad call experience - I would answer yes quickly to get you off the phone and I might not be accurate in my responses. Of course, if it were a bad experience, I probably would take the time to give feedback.

However, if you are going to take the time to do post call surveys, use the information to:

- Upgrade, change, improve your agent training

- Increase your first call resolution

- Change your IVR or skill based routing

- Empower your agents to do more without requiring a supervisor's approval

- Decrease wait time

- Share the information with management and all other touch points

In the Purdue University database of contact enters, only 61% report that they have a formal method for collecting caller satisfaction. More important, of those centers that collect customer information, only 33% of them use the information to influence change in the contact center, and even fewer use information to influence other areas in the organization.

In today's competitive marketplace, what distinguishes one company from another is its relationship with the customer. And that's a 'people' responsibility, not technology or process.

Who has that responsibility? Each and every person from your front line agent to your CEO--anyone and everyone who has interaction with a customer, current, potential, or future. 

About the Author

Rosanne D'Ausilio, Ph.D., is an industrial psychologist, consultant, master trainer, best selling author, executive coach, customer service expert, and President of Human Technologies Global, Inc. Rosanne authors best sellers “Wake Up Your Call Center: Humanize Your Interaction Hub,” 4th ed, “Customer Service and the Human Experience,” “Lay Your Cards on the Table: 52 Ways to Stack Your Personal Deck as well as her popular complimentary ‘tips’ newsletter on How To Kick Your Customer Service Up A Notch! available at http://www.HumanTechTips.com.