How Regular Surveys Can Boost Customer Service

Nearly every business transaction includes a customer service component to some degree. Even an online retail transaction involves customer service inasmuch as the seller must fulfill the order, arrange for shipping, and follow-up to make sure the customer received the product. There is no escaping the importance of customer service for building long-term relationships based on satisfaction and loyalty.

A customer service survey is a tool that can be used to find out exactly what customers are thinking regarding any touch point of the customer service paradigm. Their thoughts and impressions can then be used to boost performance by developing strategies that enable customer service representatives (CSRs) to do a better job.

Identifying Key Contact Points

A successful customer feedback survey accomplishes two purposes, beginning with identifying key contact points where customers directly interact with CSRs. By identifying those contact points, a company can develop policies, methodologies, and strategies to make sure every contact is a positive one.

The second thing a successful survey accomplishes is providing actionable data that clearly shows how a company is meeting customer expectations overall. Why is this important? Because how a customer perceives the customer service experience will be reflected in his or her overall impressions of the company. And once an organization's reputation for customer service begins to suffer, it is very difficult to get that reputation back.

Regular Surveys Are Key

A single customer service survey does a very good job at gauging satisfaction at a single point in time. But that single point in time does very little to help companies establish long-range strategies for building loyalty. It stands to reason,then,that regular surveys are essential to keeping abreast of customer satisfaction and loyalty for the purposes of maintaining the kind of positive reputation that will provide the basis for long-term growth.

Establishing an ongoing customer feedback survey schedule ensures companies have a steady stream of information to keep abreast of the quality of their customer service. In doing so, companies also:

• Protect Their Reputations – Negative perceptions of customer service are openly shared among friends; social media is proof of that. Regularly surveying customers help businesses safeguard their reputations by enabling them to address minor problems before they become major issues.

• Increase Engagement– The business-customer relationship is similar to a personal relationship in the sense that both parties need to be engaged with one another to make it work. Regular surveys promote engagement on both ends.

• Better Understand Expectations – It is terribly hard to meet and exceed customer expectations if a company does not know what those expectations are. Regular surveys keep organizations abreast of what their customers expect.

• More Easily Identify Weaknesses – Regular surveys also help to identify weaknesses quickly. When weaknesses are known, they can be addressed and corrected quickly as well.

• Maintain Market Share – A big part of maintaining market share is providing the best possible customer experience. Regular surveys provide the data companies need to improve the customer experience in a way that will turn detractors into promoters. This is a proven way to maintain market share.

At the end of the day, doing business rests firmly on an organization's ability to establish and maintain a positive relationship with each and every customer. In that sense, every business transaction involves at least some form of customer service.

Long-term business success requires attention to delivering top-notch customer service. Regularly surveying customers and responding appropriately to the collected data keeps companies at the top of their customer service games. Good things will always follow.