Jan 20

Jan 20 Should that Really be a Survey and other Survey Tips

Bill Staikos, Head of Customer Experience at Freddie Mac, shared his survey tips with me to make sure this blog had a well-rounded set of tips and considerations! If you haven’t checked out his Be Customer Led podcast, check it out!

I have had two client reach out in the past couple of weeks asking me to provide feedback on their next customer survey. My first question each time was ‘what’s the purpose of your survey, what are you hoping to learn, and what are you going to do with the feedback’. There is no implied judgment in these questions. I love the idea of surveys, and by that I mean I often want to send out a survey. Jessica as a customer does NOT love most surveys. Survey fatigue is a real thing. It is a good thing I have decades of experience as a customer to catch myself before I make all the mistakes ! highlight below.

Seven Deadly Survey Sins

Forgetting the survey is part of your customers’ experience
Overusing surveys when you have other options, including one-on-one conversations, customer advisory boards (CABs), focus groups, user testing support, and don’t forget about input from your own front-line team members
Lacking clear purpose for your survey
Asking questions out of curiosity versus for analysis and action
Assuming your customers can sense your improvements and know their feedback made a difference
Trying to ask EVERYTHING in one survey
Guarding feedback like it is the results for the Academy Awards

A Whole Lot of Survey Tips

General Tips

Remember the survey is a touchpoint and part of the overall customer experience. *It should be a positive experience for customers and a valuable investment of their time.*
Is a survey the right approach? Or do you need to engage with your front-line employees, review customer service cases, customer feedback/complaints, credits/refunds/write-offs, CAB, focus group, pilot group, UAT support?
Define who your audience for the survey needs to be

Survey Purpose Tips

Clarify the purpose, goals, and type of survey. Type: NPS, CES, CSAT, market research, branding, other? *DO NOT SHORT-CHANGE THIS STEP*
Keep in mind requesting feedback from customers or prospects is an unexpected interaction from their perspective. *Be sure to explain why you are conducting the survey and provide clear instructions if necessary.*

Content and Structure Tips

Keep it simple AND short to avoid survey fatigue. Aim for under 10 questions and under 5 min to complete. *Survey abandon rates increase greatly with every question added.
Create balanced and structured questions that clearly demonstrates you are seeking both positive and negative feedback.
Structuring survey questions
Consider varying the types of survey questions. Mix-up open-ended questions with multiple choice, so feedback is well-rounded and gets at ‘why’.
Avoid leading questions that can sway feedback and influence customers to answer a particular way.
Ask one question at a time. If you ask ‘Is the website easy to navigate and useful’, you are asking two (2) questions, and results won’t provide you with valuable insight.
Keep most questions optional.
Do not ask a question if you should or already do know the answer.
Avoid complicated or jargon-filled sentences. Use customer language.
Use conversational language; nobody likes surveys that sound clinical.
Do not ask questions you already know the answer to (e.g., how long have you been a customer?)

While waiting in a taxi queue in frigid weather, I cringed at the entire ridiculous process. It was clearly designed by someone who had never been in that taxi queue or any other one. The two airport employees overseeing the queue were friendly and helpful. I’m guessing they had plenty of opinions about the process too. As I got closer to the front of the line, there was one of those standalone one-question survey posts with two big buttons - one green and one red. The question was weather the employees did a good job. I begrudgingly pushed the green button, wishing they were asking me about the process, not the people. That’s the feedback they really needed!

Procedural Tips

Survey delivery vehicle: email, text, phone call, other?
An alternative to direct surveying would be to have leaders or salespeople reach out to their accounts to ask the questions and submit the answers on their behalf into the standard format (repository). This may help response rate and data collection.

Test your survey
- Pilot your survey to test function, understanding, etc. with a variety of people with different backgrounds and solicit their feedback.
- Preview the survey on different devices – laptop, tablet, mobile

If the survey is not anonymous, share results with sales and attach results to their customer record.
Customers should not have to repeat themselves down-the-road about something they answered in a survey.
Pilot your survey to test function, understanding, etc. with a variety of people with different backgrounds and solicit their feedback.
Preview the survey on different devices – laptop, tablet, mobile.

Taking Action Tips

Have a regular process for reviewing feedback and taking action.
- Listen: Gather Voice of the Customer (VOC) information from multiple sources
- Understand: Review and quantify all sources of VOC information  Integrate VOC information throughout business systems (strategy, processes, organization & culture, tools/technology)
- Act: Timely & actionable follow-up on information  Continuous process of closed loop customer feedback  Prioritize improvement initiatives.
- Evaluate: Measure business impact of actions taken

Closing the Loop Tips

Plan to close-the-loop and let respondents know specifically what was done with their feedback.
Consider how you will analyze the feedback and how you will segment the feedback data.
- Doublecheck to make sure your survey questions support this segmentation (e.g., by customer, geography, channel).
Say thank you. If your thank is sent from an email address, please don’t send an email from a no-reply email address. It’s tacky and contradicts a message of ‘we’re listening, and we value your feedback”’
Tie meta data on the back end for improved analytics and actionability.
Create surveys/listening posts that measure the experience through customer journeys.
Start from strategic (e.g., overall Satisfaction) to more tactical.
Democratize the insights company-wide, not just with your sales team; and don’t just share when the score increases. Receptionists, facilities, mailroom, sales, finance - everyone should see this stuff!
Make survey feedback a living, breathing thing. Make sure the questions you are asking are correct for the time (e.g., tied to your business objectives and sensitive to your industry/social/geopolitical climate).
Share what you are doing to improve scores on your public site for everyone to see?