Surveying our clients - dos and don'ts

I love to send out a survey once I have completed a Salesforce implementation for a client or when I complete a training for them.

Don't you?

I truly believe that a?customer satisfaction survey?is a great instrument that helps companies and individuals to measure a level of?customer satisfaction when it comes to their product and service.

More importantly they're very useful for identifying unhappy?customers?and helps us to improve our work. Yes, time to time it can be though to read them, to face some negative comments in them, but trust me long term it does good for us.

In this article I would like to share my experience on things that you should do and don't do when conducting a survey.

DO

• Do keep it simple : If you word your survey poorly or if it contains a lot of unnecessary elements I can assure you that many of your clients will leave half way of your survey and wont fill it out.
• Do ask one question at a time: It can be really confusing if you pack to much into a single question. It can confuse your clients and looks bad on you as well.
• Do make a good use of open-ended and closed-ended questions: Most of my surveys have a good balance of 70-30% when it comes to open-ended questions vs close-ended questions. We live in a fast paced era, no-one has time to write an essays in a survey.
• Do use clear and accurate language: You don't want your clients to misunderstand you or misread your message. Choose specific words and make sure your questions are clear plain and unmistakable.
• Do put your questions in a right order: Use a logical order when creating your survey questions. Make sure you group similar topics together ( I often use section breaks between groups of questions)

DO NOT

• Don't forget to test your survey before sending it out : I am sure at some point of our lives we all made a mistake of sending out an email before reading it through to make sure no spelling mistakes etc. Same thing can happen with your surveys, but trust me even tiny mistakes can influence the result of your survey.

Make sure you check, check and double check the questions before sending them out.

• Don't make your survey too long: In general people don't like to spend more than 2-3 minutes to fill out a survey. From experience I can tell you the more questions you put in a survey there is a higher chance that the client will drop-off and wont complete it.

Make sure your survey consist of max 7-10 questions.

• Don't use jargon : I am sure you have done a fantastic implementation and training of your end users and they are now all Salesforce "pro's" but still try avoiding jargons and acronyms in your survey. Still, going beyond necessary terms to write in jargon can cause misunderstanding even if your users are well trained in Salesforce.

Questions that are easier to read are more likely to help your clients to give you the right answers.

• Don't forget to revise/analyse your data: Once you have analysed your survey data you will have a better insight and you will better understand your client. Take your time to reflect what might went wrong in case you have some negative or low score answers.

Are you ready to send out some cool surveys?

Use surveys because they are cost-effective, easy to administer and they can be developed in very short time with very little effort.

Use surveys to help you grow as an individual, as a company and as a professional.

Use surveys because they are fun and getting a positive feedback will boost your self-esteem :)