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There is no denying that surveys are effective tools for evaluating customer service, event satisfaction, and the effectiveness of recent policy shifts or changes within your organization from a customer point of view. However, timing is everything when you plan to use survey results to affect changes within your business organizations or for meaningful measurements of existing policies and practices.
What are some best practices for customer surveys frequency?
Online survey software makes it simple for you to conduct surveys at the drop of a hat. That doesn't mean, however, that it's the right choice to make. Depending on your business, surveying customers too frequently can lead to burnout. A great way to circumvent this burnout is to consider targeting a portion of your customers for each survey, rather than targeting all of them. This spreads the surveys around to avoid burning out your market.
In addition, avoid surveying your customers without a specific question or goal in mind. The survey should be devoted to getting the answer you need, so that you can make business decisions based on the answer.
Be careful about implementing your survey tool at a time when your business is too busy to solve problems the surveys reveal. This means you need to be able to devote time, energy, and resources to creating new policies to research and create solutions to problems as they are revealed and to put them into practice quickly.
If you're conducting surveys without affecting real changes based on the results you're doing a disservice to your business and the customers you've surveyed. Honor the time and feedback the customers give your business by responding to your online survey software queries by using the information they provide to give them a better shopping experience.
What is the best timing for customer surveys?
Timing can make all the difference for many business decisions. The same holds true for surveys. The bottom line is that timing it right matters if you're trying to get a better participation rate in order to reach out a representative sample of customers rather than a select few. Consider these important facts when planning the next time you'll use your online survey software.
* Survey customers before events. This lets them feel like you're planning the event for them and that they can have an effect on how the event plays out.
* Survey customers after events. This gives you the opportunity to see what they did and did not like about the event so that you can incorporate the information into your planning for the next event.
* Survey customers immediately after their purchase. This means the transaction and overall experience is still fresh in the customer's mind. It's the greatest opportunity to get an unvarnished account of the situation and to give the customer an immediate outlet for praise or criticism.
* Survey customers before making major business changes. Sometimes, there is a disconnect between what you believe customers want and what they actually do want. Give them a chance to chime in before you make changes so that you avoid unintentionally alienating your customer base.
Don't forget to keep your customers in mind when planning your surveys. Many customers will be out of the office during holiday times or too busy to deal with a survey during peak times. For instance, you wouldn't want to send a survey to an accountant during the end of March or beginning of April or a retail outlet between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Incorporate these strategies for timing and frequency of your surveys in order to enjoy greater participation and effectiveness.
See Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_service
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