5 Tips for an Effective Customer Survey (And Why They Work)

If your business revolves around customers, then the success of your business is a direct result of their satisfaction. When a customer is satisfied with the experience, service, or product you provide, that customer is more likely to return and more likely to recommend you to others. Likewise, an unhappy customer is unlikely to return and will often speak of a poor experience with friends, associates, and other potential customers who may then be discouraged from giving you a try.

The stakes are high. Research shows that customers who have a negative experience are far more likely to share it publicly than those with a positive one. That means every dissatisfied customer who walks away unheard represents not just lost revenue, but lost referrals. A well-designed customer feedback survey gives you the opportunity to hear from customers before they share their experience elsewhere.

Given that customer satisfaction is so essential to most businesses, it follows that business operators should be eager to learn more about what their customers appreciate and value as well as what may turn them away. Customer satisfaction surveys, when written, conducted, and interpreted properly, are an excellent way to gauge how customers truly feel about your business. In this article, we share 5 tips for an effective customer survey.

1. Respect your customers’ time.

Many survey requests ask participants for “a few minutes of your time,” when the actual survey may take 15 to 20 minutes to complete. It is tempting to overload customer surveys with too many questions. However, when you do this, you run the risk of losing a customer partway through, or of a participant rushing to finish without giving responses that are truly insightful.

Before you issue a survey, do the research to identify the key issues or areas of your business you want to improve. Then ask minimal questions, but make sure each one is written in a way that elicits a genuine and actionable response.

A good rule of thumb: if a question does not directly help you make a decision or take action, remove it. Survey fatigue is a real phenomenon, and response quality drops significantly once a survey passes the five to seven minute mark. Keep it focused, and your data will be far more reliable.

2. Give your customers a voice.

While it is important for you to respect your customers’ time by keeping surveys brief it is also important to write survey questions that encourage customers to give valuable feedback.

Surveys that only use questions with number ratings (quantitative questions) are tempting because they require your customers to spend less time on their feedback, but responses to open-ended survey questions (qualitative questions) are also important. Responses to open-ended survey questions are the key to understanding what additional quantitative survey questions should be included on your next survey.

A customer survey is an opportunity for your customer to be heard, and a properly written survey gives insight not achievable by other methods. As Micah Solomon, a contributing writer to Forbes, puts it: “A survey should include free-form text fields to identify novel responses that you may not have even considered and to offer your customers an opportunity to express themselves.”

Balancing both question types is a hallmark of a well-designed survey. If you are unsure how to strike that balance, reviewing satisfied customer review examples can help you understand the language customers naturally use to describe great experiences, which in turn helps you write better open-ended questions.

3. Show your customers you listened to them.

When a customer believes that their survey participation may bring about an actual response from you, they will be more likely to participate and to make meaningful entries. If a customer makes a specific complaint in a survey and you have a way of contacting them, reach out. Let the customer know that you understand their frustration, rectify the issue, and find a way to incentivize that customer to give you another try.

According to Jon Picoult, an expert in customer experience improvement, quoted in the Small Business section of the Huffington Post, “Many companies never reach out to customers for feedback. When one does, customers generally view that favorably. But what really knocks their socks off is when they hear back from a company representative after completing a survey. Particularly if that survey indicated that the customer was dissatisfied in some way, getting a personalized call or note back can be stunning, in a good way. It sends a clear signal to customers that they don’t often see — namely, that this company genuinely cares about their opinion and is acting on their feedback.”

4. Act on the feedback you receive.

In addition to responding to individual complaints, you can also show your customers that you appreciate their feedback by learning from it. Whether it’s through a personal response or through making changes to your general customer experience, act quickly and effectively to remedy issues brought to your attention in survey responses.

Conducting a good customer survey is only the first step in creating a better customer experience and a more successful business. Once you have the results and have interpreted them, act on what you learn. Take concrete steps to improve the areas your customers have identified.

One of the most common mistakes organizations make is collecting survey data and then doing nothing with it. Customers notice. If the same complaints appear cycle after cycle with no visible improvement, response rates will drop and trust will erode. For a structured approach to turning survey results into meaningful change, see our guide on how to turn customer survey results into action plans.

5. Recognize your expertise as well as your limitations.

Of course, as a business executive or manager you are curious and interested in what your survey participants have to say. You are an expert in the behind-the-scenes aspects of your business never seen by your customers, so you will likely have practical solutions for problems identified in your survey. Because of this, though, it may be difficult for you to be objective when writing survey questions or when reviewing customers’ responses.

Some survey companies rely on “one size fits all” templates with generic questions and standardized interpretations. But your business is unique, as are your customers and their needs.

That is why choosing the right partner matters. If you are evaluating your options, our roundup of the 10 best customer satisfaction survey companies breaks down what separates average vendors from genuinely expert research partners.

NBRI’s team of customer experience experts has spent decades designing surveys across every major industry, each tailored to help organizations accomplish a specific set of goals. Once your customers complete a survey, experienced organizational psychologists help you understand exactly what they are telling you about their wants, needs, and frustrations in the context of your specific business.

A well-conducted and expertly interpreted customer survey program enables you to retain and grow a loyal customer base. Satisfied customers become advocates, recommending your business to others and amplifying your reputation without any additional marketing spend.

You are the expert when it comes to your business. At NBRI, we are the experts when it comes to customer surveys. By working together, we can identify your clear path to profit improvement, backed by 40 years of research experience and one of the most comprehensive customer benchmark databases in the industry.

Ready to get started? Explore NBRI’s customer survey solutions or give us a call at 800-756-6168.