The Wrong Way To Do Customer Surveys... and the right way

The best people to REALLY tell you how well your business is performing is your customers, so it makes sense to ask them. The big question is HOW do you ask them?

The first question I always ask is this, "What do you want to hear, what you want to, or what you NEED to". Everyone then answers, "what they NEED to", and continue to conduct surveys that deliver only what they WANT to hear. Nuts, or nuts?

The thing is us humans are not great at telling the truth when asked, so we default to the "won't upset anyone" answer. This is why 99.8764376% (approximately) of surveys are either i) a waste of time, or ii) just annoying.

Here's the proof. You're in a restaurant and have just had a completely underwhelming meal with mediocre service at best. "Was everything OK for you" comes the text book question, quickly followed by the textbook reply... "yes, fine thanks"

You LEAVE the establishment vowing never to return, a loss for you and the restaurant. You have also done the owner a massive DIS SERVICE by not alerting them to their failings and giving them the opportunity to correct it. You won't tell the truth on the night, however, oh my god, did you leave them a REVIEW !!!!

This is "Restaurant Feedback Syndrome" - I just made that up, so don't Google it.

When you send a "Customer Survey" that comes from YOU, then you are asking, "was your meal okay this evening?" - expect the majority to either ignore you are say "fine". You can now pat yourself on the back that 99.6% of your customers are delighted, without realising who are leaving you, or why.

This is where the Net Promoter Score is a game changer. NPS works by asking ONE key question, and that question is this. "On a score of 0-10, how likely are you to refer ABC Widgets Ltd to a friend or colleague?".

The answers then provide a NPS Score. Anyone who scores 0-6 are termed DETRACTORS. Those who score 7 or 8 are deemed PASSIVES, and those who score 9 or 10 are termed PROMOTERS.

We then subtract the DETRACTORS from PROMOTERS, and ignore PASSIVES. Lets' say your score was this... 5% Detractors, 65% Passives and 30% Promoters. 30-5 = NPS of 25. That's OK, as the UK average is 20.

Anything above 20 is good, above 50 is considered exceptional, and above 80 to be world class.

The key with the Net Promoter Score is it's 100% confidential, and SEEN to be confidential, so you get accurate feedback that you can ACT on.

When I do NPS for clients I do it through Value Builder which then provides full details of the score and answers, just not the customer info. If you're serious about conducting a GENUINE Customer Survey - it has to be NPS. NPS is a great predictor of compnay growth, so it makes sense to add that to your "to do list".