How to conduct a customer satisfaction survey

The following information is reproduced for reference

Customer satisfaction survey methods

Establishing a complaint and suggestion system

Customer-centered enterprises should It can facilitate customers to convey their suggestions and complaints, and the establishment of a complaint and suggestion system can collect customers' opinions and suggestions. For example, many restaurants and hotels provide forms for guests to reflect their opinions. Hospitals can set up suggestion boxes in the hallways, provide comment cards to inpatients, and hire a dedicated patient to collect input from patients. Some customer-centered companies, such as Procter & Gamble, Panasonic, Sharp, etc., have established a toll-free hotline called a "customer hotline" to maximize customer consultation, suggestions or complaints. These information flows help companies solve problems more quickly and provide these companies with many ideas for developing new products. For example, 3M claims that 2/3 of its product improvement ideas come from customer opinions.

Customer Satisfaction Scale Survey

As an enterprise, do not think that by establishing a complaint and suggestion system, you can fully understand customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. A survey conducted in a Singapore shopping mall showed that when customers are dissatisfied with poor service, they will have the following reactions: 70% of shoppers will buy elsewhere; 39% of people think it is too troublesome to complain; 24% of people will tell others Don't shop at a store that provides poor service; 17% will write a complaint about poor service; 9% will blame the salesperson for poor service. The above results show that not all dissatisfied customers will complain. Therefore, companies cannot use the degree of complaints to measure customer satisfaction. They should obtain direct measurement indicators of customer satisfaction by conducting periodic surveys.

Companies can ask buyers how satisfied they are by phone or letter. In these tests that ask about customer satisfaction, questionnaires or test scales are generally designed from the following two aspects: first, list all factors that may affect customer satisfaction, and then arrange them in order of importance from the most important to the least important, and finally Select the factors that the company is most concerned about and ask the interviewees to help judge the importance of these factors; ask the interviewees to evaluate the degree of satisfaction of the selected important factors to be evaluated, usually with a five-item scale. , such as highly satisfied, generally satisfied, no opinion, somewhat dissatisfied, and extremely dissatisfied. This is the main method of discovering customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, and the company will use this information to improve its next phase of work.

Pretend shopping method

Another effective way to understand customer satisfaction is to hire some people to pretend to be potential buyers to report on their purchase process of the company's and competitors' products. advantages and disadvantages found. These pretend shoppers may even deliberately cause trouble to see if the company's sales staff can handle the situation. Not only should companies employ pretend shoppers, but managers themselves should leave the office from time to time and travel incognito to shop at companies and competitors to experience first-hand what it's like to be treated as a customer. Another unusual method for managers is to call their own company as a customer to raise various questions and complaints to see how the company's employees handle these problems. For example, Taikang Insurance Company often calls customers to ask whether its employees have conducted persuasive sales to customers or signed on behalf of customers.

Lost Customer Analysis

Companies should contact customers who have stopped buying or switched to other suppliers to understand why this happened. Whenever IBM loses a customer, it will go to great lengths to analyze the reasons for the failure: the price is too high, the service is defective, or the product is unreliable, etc. It's important to engage in "exit surveys" and control "customer loss rates." Because the customer loss rate increases, it indicates that the company is not satisfactory in satisfying customers.

In the final analysis, the above-mentioned customer satisfaction survey method is to collect relevant information. For this reason, companies must spend money and carefully design their own information systems.

Generally speaking, there are two types of channels for obtaining information: formal and informal. Formal channels are mainly open and programmed channels, such as customer complaint systems and customer satisfaction surveys; informal information channels are non-public and hidden. Information channels, such as pretend shopping, visiting incognito, arranging "eyes" and "undercovers" among customers, etc., fall into this category. The advantage of formal information channels is that they are programmed, but the disadvantage is that they are too slow. In addition, due to factors such as face and emotion, it is inconvenient for customers to express some dissatisfaction. The advantage of informal channels is that they are fast and can obtain the most confidential information from customers. Their disadvantages are that they are non-programmed and tend to generalize the opinions of individual customers. Marketing managers must flexibly control these two channels and use informal channels to make up for the shortcomings of formal channels.

Customer satisfaction survey process

Determine the content of the survey

To carry out customer satisfaction survey research, you must first identify customers and their demand structures, and clearly carry out customer satisfaction surveys. Satisfaction survey content. Different companies and different products have different customers. Different groups of customers have different focuses in their demand structure. For example, some focus on price, some focus on service, and some focus on performance and functionality. Generally speaking, the investigation content mainly includes the following aspects: product intrinsic quality, including product technical performance, reliability, maintainability, safety, etc.; product functional requirements, including usage functions, auxiliary functions (comfort, etc.); Product service needs, including pre-sales and after-sales service needs. Product extension needs, including spare parts supply, product introduction materials, training support, etc.; product appearance, packaging, protection needs; product price needs, etc.

Quantifying and weighting customer satisfaction indicators

The essence of customer satisfaction survey is a quantitative analysis process, that is, using numbers to reflect customers’ attitudes towards the attributes of the measurement object, so it is necessary Quantify survey project indicators. Customer satisfaction surveys understand customers’ attitudes towards products, services or companies, that is, the level of satisfaction. Generally, a seven-level attitude level is used: very satisfied, satisfied, relatively satisfied, average, not very satisfied, dissatisfied and very dissatisfied. The corresponding assignments are 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Generally speaking, very satisfied means that the product or service fully meets or even exceeds the customer's expectations, and the customer is very excited and satisfied; satisfied means that the product or service basically meets customer expectations in all aspects, and the customer is satisfied and happy; relatively satisfied means that The product or service meets customer expectations in many aspects, and the customer has a favorable impression and affirmation; generally indicates that the product or service meets the customer's minimum expectations, and the customer has no obvious bad emotions; dissatisfaction indicates that the product or service does not meet the customer's main expectations, and the customer complains, Regret; dissatisfaction indicates that there are defects in some aspects of the product or service, and the customer is angry and annoyed; very dissatisfied indicates that the product or service has major defects, and the customer is angry and annoyed.

For different products and services, the same indicators have different impacts on customer satisfaction. For example, after-sales service is a very important factor for the consumer durables industry, but the opposite is true for the FMCG industry. Therefore, the weights of the same indicators in different indicator systems are completely different. Only by giving appropriate weights to different factors can customer satisfaction be objectively and truly reflected. To determine the weight, the author recommends using the Delphi method, inviting a certain number of relevant experts to weight each item of the survey, and asking them to send their weight results to the investigator, who will then return the combined results. Give it to the experts, who use this information to perform a new round of weighting, and go back and forth several times until a stable weighting result (level 1~3) is obtained. Finally, the calculation formula for the score results of each customer satisfaction index is: score = weight wood score value.

Clear the survey methods

There are three main methods commonly used at present:

(1) Questionnaire survey. This is one of the most common methods of collecting customer satisfaction data. The questionnaire contains many questions, and the respondents are required to choose the corresponding answers to the questions according to the preset form. Customers evaluate the company's service quality, customer service work and customer satisfaction level based on their own interests.

It also allows respondents to answer questions in an open manner, allowing for a more detailed grasp of their thinking.

(2) Secondary data collection. Secondary data are mostly obtained through public publications, the Internet, and survey companies. There may be flaws in the detail and usefulness of the data, but after all, it can be used as an important reference before our in-depth investigation. Especially when designing questionnaires, secondary data can provide us with a rough outline of the industry and help designers grasp the questions to be investigated.

(3) Interview research. Including internal interviews, in-depth interviews and focus interviews. Internal interviews are an important supplement to and confirmation of secondary data. Through internal interviews, we can understand the general thoughts of business operators on the projects to be carried out. Internal interviews are also the best way to discover corporate problems. In-depth interviews are typical user in-depth interviews implemented when necessary to make up for the shortcomings of questionnaire surveys. An in-depth interview is a one-on-one conversation about a certain point, during which a series of probing questions are asked to explore the interviewee's views on something or the reasons for a certain behavior. Generally, a detailed discussion outline should be designed before conducting interviews, and the issues discussed should be universal. Focus interviews can be used to obtain information in order to design a questionnaire more comprehensively or to cooperate with in-depth interviews. Focus interviews are when an interviewer trained by the company guides 8 to 12 people (customers) to have an in-depth discussion on a certain topic or concept. Focus interviews usually avoid using straightforward questions, but instead use indirect questions to stimulate spontaneous discussions among participants. This can inspire participants to speak freely in a "feeling safe" environment and discover important information.

Choose the objects of investigation

When determining the objects of investigation, some companies often only look for old customers (loyal customers) that they are familiar with, and exclude those customers who may be dissatisfied with them. Sometimes, some companies only conduct customer satisfaction surveys during product production and sales meetings and ordering meetings. Visitors often ask for help from the company, so they have to say more good things and less bad things. Moreover, since such symposiums are often limited to dealers, and those who participate in production and sales meetings and ordering meetings are often only dealers' purchasing personnel, they are not the end users of the products, and they have not even had direct contact with the buyers or end users of the products. who.

If there are few customers, a full survey should be conducted. But for most companies, it is very difficult and unnecessary to conduct a comprehensive survey of all customers. Scientific random sampling surveys should be conducted. In the selection of sampling methods, in order to ensure that the sample has a certain representativeness, random sampling can be carried out according to the types of customers: dealers at all levels and end users, and the regional scope of customers (East China, South China, North China, West China). In determining the size of the sample, in order to obtain more complete information, it is necessary to ensure that the sample is large enough, but at the same time, the cost and time constraints of the survey are taken into account.

Collection of customer satisfaction data

The collection of customer satisfaction data can be through written or oral questionnaires, telephone or face-to-face interviews. If there is a website, online customer satisfaction can also be conducted investigation. Surveys usually contain many questions or statements, and the respondents are required to choose the corresponding answers after the questions according to a preset form. Sometimes the survey allows the respondents to answer in an open manner, so that more detailed information can be obtained. Ability to capture valuable information about customer satisfaction levels. The survey method allows customers to evaluate the company's service quality, customer service work and customer satisfaction level from their own interests.

Scientific Analysis

Nowadays, after many companies conduct customer satisfaction surveys, they simply calculate the mean comparison based on the measurement and calculation methods formulated by their own company and end it. In fact, if we further select appropriate analysis tools and methods, customer satisfaction measurement results can provide us with a lot of useful information. For the analysis of customer satisfaction survey results, commonly used methods include: analysis of variance, Shewhart control chart, two-sample T test, process capability histogram and Pareto chart, etc.

Therefore, in order to objectively reflect customer satisfaction, enterprises must determine, collect and analyze appropriate customer satisfaction data and use scientific and effective statistical analysis methods to confirm the suitability and effectiveness of the quality management system and evaluate where it can be sustained. improve. Analysis of customer satisfaction data will provide information on the following aspects:

(1) Customer satisfaction;

(2) Compliance with service requirements;

(3) Characteristics and trends of processes and services, including opportunities to take preventive measures;

(4) Continuous improvement and improvement of the process and results of products or services:

(5 ) Continuously identify customers and analyze changes in customer needs.

Enterprises should establish and improve the analysis system, input more customer information into the database, continuously collect relevant customer information, verify and update customer information, and delete outdated information. At the same time, scientific methods must be used to analyze customer changes and trends. Study changes in customer consumption behavior and find the patterns of changes to lay a solid foundation for improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Improve planning and execution

After scientific analysis of the collected customer satisfaction information, the company should immediately check its own work processes and focus on the "customer focus" Conduct self-examination and self-correction in accordance with the principle, identify processes that are not in line with customer satisfaction management, formulate corporate improvement plans, and organize corporate employees to implement them to achieve customer satisfaction.

Customer Satisfaction Questionnaire

Dear Customer:

Thank you very much for your strong support and trust in our company: our company will continue to stand at the side of our customers position, do our best to serve the interests of our customers, and strive for the greatest satisfaction of our customers. Complete customer satisfaction is our goal. In order to further understand the customer's service to our company, we will launch a customer satisfaction survey. Any valuable opinions and suggestions you have are valuable assets to our company and will encourage us to work harder and continuously improve. Ultimately, To provide you with better service. In addition, in order to thank you for your valuable opinions and suggestions, our company will regularly select ten customers from the excellent "Customer Satisfaction Survey Form" and give them exquisite gifts to express our gratitude.

Customer information:

Name:

Telephone:

Fax:

Address:

E-mail:

Postcode:

Customer Satisfaction Survey Form:

1. Are you satisfied with the attitude of our company's service staff?

Very satisfied □ Satisfied □ Average □ Dissatisfied □ Very dissatisfied □

2. Are you satisfied with the technical level of our company's service personnel?

Very satisfied □ Satisfied □ Average □ Dissatisfied □ Very dissatisfied □

3. Are you satisfied with the overall service technology level of our company?

Very satisfied □ Satisfied □ Average □ Dissatisfied □ Very dissatisfied □

4. Are you satisfied with the types of services provided by our company?

Very satisfied □ Satisfied □ Average □ Dissatisfied □ Very dissatisfied □

5. Will you or your friends continue to let our company provide you with services in the future?

Yes□ No□

Where do you think our company’s services need to be improved:

Your suggestions for our company:

Investigator:

Investigation date: Year, month, day.