Getting feedback on the experience that your customers have with you is a great way to identify areas where you can improve customer service (and in turn their loyalty). But how do you go about deciding which is the best way to do this?
In our view, there are 2 main ways to do this: a customer satisfaction survey or a mystery shopping exercise. Both have their advantages and disadvantages – of course in an ideal world we would recommend that you consider both. Here are the key points to bear in mind when conducting these types of surveys:
Customer satisfaction survey
- Ask customers what is important to them – this way you won’t spend time and money making improvements that won’t really matter to them
- Ask customers how good you are at meeting these things that are important to them – again there’s no point in being brilliant at something that doesn’t really “float their boat”
- Ask them how likely they are to do the 3 Rs – that’s repeat (purchase), refer and recommend. Measuring improvements in your Net Promoter Score can be a great way to motivate and reward your staff.
Mystery shopping
- Be clear on what experience the “shopper” should be having so they can judge your product, people, process and performance accordingly
- In particular, include any “hard” measures that they should be looking for e.g. waiting times, information that should be provided
- Mystery shopping is a good way to objectively measure performance – it can also give you the ability to impartially compare performance – useful particularly if you have multiple departments or multiple locations with similar standards they should be meeting
Want to know more? We can help from designing your survey through to managing the whole process for you. If you have a project you’re considering, please get in touch and we’ll be happy to discuss the best approach to achieving your objectives.
