How to Conduct Effective Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Colin Sinclair McDermott (WABC RCC)
Business Coach, Podcast Host, Speaker, Trainer & Mentor to the Printing Industry
Let’s face it, running a print business can be highly competitive so it’s important to understand the needs and expectation of our customers. From my own experience with the businesses I work with, customer surveys are only something around 80% of companies use, and I suspect this is mimicked across the Industry. As such, I felt it was worth digging into a little more in this article, and I hope by the end, it is something you might consider utilising more in your efforts to scale and grow. Good customer feedback should be a critical part of your overall business strategy.
Whether you’re a print broker, small print shop, or full-scale commercial operation, customer satisfaction is key, and often, the difference between success and being unsuccessful comes down to things like turnaround times, quality, and service reliability.
Why Customer Satisfaction Surveys Are a Must
I often say that the best types of customers we can have are the ones who not only order from us time and time again but also those who are happy to refer our business to others. Surveys allow us to go beyond assumptions and hear directly from our customers about what their priorities are. Do they value speed over price? Are they looking for a more sustainable product offering? Would they prefer smaller quantity options? The answers to questions like this can assist you in shaping your product offering and marketing strategy.
We can be guilty of assuming we know what our customers want but they also appreciate being heard too. Taking their feedback into consideration and acting on it if you are able, shows that you care and can go a long way to building and strengthening your relationship with them. We’ve all heard that expression “Your only as good as your last print job!”. By reaching out and understanding your customer’s pain points, you have the opportunity to put it right before your competition does. I’ve seen first hand how important feedback like this can highlight inefficiencies in a company’s workflow and perhaps reveal areas where you are falling short.
Designing Your Survey
It’s critical to get this part right as if not done with consideration, can lead to poor response rates and give you customer insights that are too vague to act on. Decide in advance what you want to learn from this process. Are you collecting information on overall customer satisfaction or exploring new opportunities? Either way, you want to keep the questions short and focused. Ideally, you want to keep it under ten to fifteen questions at the very most so that it takes your customers no longer than three to five minutes to complete. Some questions you might want to consider asking are:
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I recommend using a mix of question types. Closed-ended questions such as using scales from 1-10 to rate you or simple yes/no answers. You should also use open-ended questions to allow your customers to elaborate in their answers e.g. How might we improve our service? Multiple choice might be more suited to questions like the last one where they can select the box(es) that best suit them, e.g. Telephone, Email, Social Media, or In Person. Similarly, if you are asking which products they typically buy, they can select the boxes with the products in their current marketing materials.
Some of these questions might seem forward but I assure you they work. I went through a similar exercise with one of my coaching clients last year. Like many of us are guilty of, he too assumed that most of his clients were giving him the majority of their work. On analysis of the submitted surveys, he discovered that from the 75 customers who did respond, he was leaving around ￡1.5m on the table. Much of this was down to unresolved issues he had no idea about or simply their lack of understanding of what products he did or didn’t offer. There were some customers who stopped using him for a particular product because they weren’t happy with the quality last time around or the job was late. In some cases, he just hadn’t marketed his full offering well enough. I’m sure we’ve all had that conversation with a client where they say “Oh, I didn’t know you did that!”.
Distributing Your Survey
There are a number of ways for you to get your survey into your customer’s hands. One of the more common platforms is ‘Survey Monkey’ or if you use ‘Mailchimp’ for email marketing, they now have a feature you can use to send surveys out. Alternatively, you can opt for the good old-fashioned way of sending them a printed questionnaire.
Customers are probably more likely to fill out your survey if there’s something in it for them. A discount on their next order is probably the most common one. I’m not a huge fan of discounting but I do believe they have their time and place and this is one of them. The data you acquire from this process is invaluable and well worth the small hit. You can choose to send it out annually, individually after a job is delivered whilst their experience is fresh, or even consider a blend of both.
Analysing Your Results
Once you have the results, you want to use these insights and take action. Firstly, you want to look for recurring trends. For instance, if multiple customers are commenting on not being aware of certain products you offer, you might want to look at how you can change this by educating them better through your marketing efforts. Try and focus on changes that will have the biggest impact both on your customer’s satisfaction and also your sales pipeline.
It's important to give feedback to your customers on what changes you’ve made. It shows you have listened and are making the necessary improvements. From my time as a Print Coach, the one thing I’ve come to learn is that the print companies that listen to their customers are the most successful ones.