A lot of things have to happen to build an effective customer feedback program.
The flip side of this that if you have a customer feedback program which isn’t effective, there’s a lot of potential reasons. Using a systematic approach to troubleshooting the feedback process can help avoid wasting time on implementing the wrong solutions.
So to help with an ineffective survey process, here’s a short troubleshooting guide for common survey problems.
Problem: Low Survey Response
General Troubleshooting Questions:
- Are you are getting accurate contact information for customers?
- Does the survey work (no errors, database problems, etc.)?
- Is the survey a reasonable length (one page with no scrolling for online surveys, five minutes or less for phone interviews)?
- Does the survey appear to come from a legitimate source?
- Are you ensuring that customers don’t get over-surveyed?
- Can the customer take the survey immediately when asked, or does the customer need to remember to do it at a later time?
- Does the survey require the customer to go through extra steps (copy a code from a receipt, call a phone number, etc.)?
- Does the survey have mandatory questions?
- Is the customer asked to take the survey a long time (days or even weeks) after the transaction?
Troubleshooting Questions for Email/Online Surveys:
- Are survey invitations being marked as spam?
- Does the invitation look professional and legitimate?
- Does the invitation explain why you want the customer’s feedback?
- Does the invitation promise that the survey will be short (note: the survey must actually be short)?
Troubleshooting Questions for Phone Interviews:
- Do the phone interviewers sound polite, empathetic, and professional on the phone?
- Do the phone interviewers have noticeable foreign accents?
- Is the Caller ID set to a real phone number which customers can call back to verify the survey is legitimate?
- Does the interview script give an honest estimate of the survey time?
- Do interviewers identify themselves and the sponsor of the survey?
Problem: No Follow-Through With Customers
Troubleshooting Questions:
- Do you have a closed-loop process for customers who may want or need extra attention?
- Is there tracking to ensure customers who need follow-up are actually contacted?
- Are follow-up calls conducted by someone empowered to solve the customer’s problem?
- Do you capture and track the root causes of customers’ issues?
- Are follow-up calls conducted by someone other than the person who may have caused the customer’s problem?
Problem: Survey Responses Are Not Relevant to the Business
Troubleshooting Questions:
- Has the survey been updated recently?
- Have you reviewed the performance of each survey question, and removed questions which are not yielding useful information?
- Have you experimented with new survey questions relevant to current business issues?
- Are you asking follow-up questions when customers have negative feedback?
- Do you ask business stakeholders to provide feedback on what questions are relevant to them?
- Do you regularly update the survey as the business needs evolve?
- Do front-line employees have access to raw customer feedback in real time?
Problem: The Business Does Not Fix Known Problems in the Customer Experience
- Is there a leadership commitment to improve the customer experience?
- Do other parts of the organization get data to show how they impact the customer experience?
- Are you using individual customer stories to persuade the organization that these issues are important?
- Is the customer survey perceived as credible?
- Does the company culture encourage listening to customer feedback?
- Can you connect poor customer experience to financial metrics (through churn, increased operational expense, higher customer acquisition cost, etc.)?
Problem: Too Much Survey Data and Not Enough Useful Information
- Have you reviewed the performance of each survey question and removed questions which are not yielding useful information?
- Are you giving customer-facing employees direct and real-time access to their customer feedback?
- Are you asking follow-up questions when the customer gives negative feedback?
- Do you have a reporting tool which allows easy filtering of customer feedback?
- Are you tracking general categories of customer comments in free response questions?
- Do your categories evolve as the business needs change?
- Do you keep the number of categories manageable, so you don’t have categories which are either irrelevant to the business or statistically insignificant?
Problem: Survey Reports Are Ignored
- Is there a leadership commitment to improve the customer experience?
- Does the company have a culture of listening to customer feedback?
- Are survey reports tailored to the needs of the individual recipient, or does everyone get the same reports?
- Can recipients of survey reports modify the reports (filter the data, calculate new metrics, read customer comments, etc.)?
- Have you asked for feedback on survey reports from the people who receive them?
- Do recipients of reports feel they have a stake in the customer feedback process?
These questions get to a lot of common underlying problems we see with customer feedback processes. This doesn’t cover everything that can go wrong, but it’s a good place to start if you don’t think you’re getting the results you should.
