Customer service is not only new marketing for modern businesses, but it’s also become the most efficient and proactive method of reputation management. Having happy customers ensure that you have less bad reviews to worry about and that those bad reviews don’t have as much negative effect to your brand’s reputation.
So how do you keep your customers happy? How do you make sure you always provide the best experience to your clients?
Why, by asking them, of course!
Conducting customer surveys regularly will assure your customers that you’re dedicated to enhancing the services you provide. They give the impression of a brand that listens to its audience and is willing to make the necessary changes to grow.
Here are some important must-dos when you’re running a survey.
Do keep it short. Your customers will not fill out a four-page form detailing their likes and dislikes about your product or service. Prepare between five and ten questions, and make sure you keep your questions simple and short. No fancy complicated phrases that confuse more than they clarify, no jargon. Get your point across in as simple a way as possible in as few survey items as you can.
Do establish your goal and stick to it. What’s the point of this survey? Are you checking how effective your onboarding process is? Do you want additional insights on your latest software update? Make sure you know what you’re trying to achieve, and craft your questions accordingly.
If the question does not serve your end goal, don’t include it. If names and contact info are not essential to the objective of the feedback form, there’s no need to include boxes for them. Only ask what is essential. If you find you need to ask additional questions not related to your established goal, run a separate survey for it.
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Do provide a free form box. A lot of times, customer experience cannot be adequately described by just a number rating or a yes/no question. Sure, the ratings work to warm the respondents up, but ultimately there should be an opportunity for customers to tell you – in their own words – what they think about your product or service.
Do ask one thing at a time. There can be quite a thin line between using an inquiring tone in your surveys and an interrogating one. When you ask multiple questions in one survey item thinking the questions are all related and should be grouped, you might sound like you’re badgering your respondent.
Do make it worth your customer’s time. Don’t bribe them, of course. And there’s no need for the incentive to be something huge or super valuable. Discounts, extended trials, and free upgrade for a short amount of time can work quite well to encourage customers to make the effort to complete your survey.
Do use the knowledge you get from the survey to improve your service. Don’t just ask and forget. Utilize the insights you gained and get cracking on making things a whole lot better for your customers.
Did they say your website’s loading time is terrible when being accessed through a mobile device? Optimize it. Are they being inundated by too many promotional emails from you every day? Consider giving them a weekly digest option. Is your response time on your social media accounts extremely slow? Set up a monitoring system so you’re notified as soon as a customer posts something about you.
Take advantage of the feedback and build a better brand.
How about you? How do you conduct customer surveys to make sure you’re always on top of what your customers need? Let us know in the comments!
shunikerhiqu 