The creation of a customer feedback survey form used to be quite a difficult task.
However, today with the advent of new cloud-based technologies and innovative methodologies which have drastically reduced the number of questions necessary to ask, this process has become much agiler and at the same time, assertive.
Check out this post for a way to build a customer feedback survey form that can even have only one question (if necessary) and how to use applications available on the web for this.
Creating a Customer Feedback Survey Form
A key factor is that no one has time or willingness anymore to fill out long customer feedback survey forms.
So, to produce lean and objective forms, we have 3 practical suggestions:
- Use the NPS (Net Promoter Score) as the first question on the form
- Define the benefits of your product or service that you believe the customer values highly
- Use online forms to do your research
Here’s how to take advantage of each of these tips.
See also: Nonconformity control: Increase customer satisfaction
1- Getting to know the Net Promoter Score
The NPS, Net Promoter Score, is a customer satisfaction research methodology created by Fred Reichheld and is based on one question only, which should be addressed to your customers like this:
On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product (or service) to a friend or acquaintance?
According to Reichheld’s studies, this is the question that best translates customer satisfaction for a brand.
- Those who select numbers from 0 to 6 are the so-called detractors of your business;
- Those who choose 7 or 8, are indifferent to your company;
- And those who indicate a 9 or 10, are part of the network of promoters of your business.
Source: NPS / Net Promoter – the Good, the Bad… and the Dangerous
So by subtracting the percentage of customer promoters from the percentage of detractor customers, you will get your Net Promoter Score.
- Results greater than 74 are considered excellent
- Those between 50 and 74 show quality
- For those between 0 and 49 the company needs to improve
- Negative results indicate a critical situation.
Therefore, we recommend that the first question on your customer feedback survey form be based on this methodology.
See more: ITIL methodology: What is it and how does it improves client satisfaction.
2- Defining important benefits valued by the client
Your company is not always certain of which benefits from your products or services most satisfy your customers.
So our advice is to take this customer feedback survey form to make sure of that.
It’s clear that your company has a sense of what those benefits would be.
In this context, we suggest that the second question on your form lists the 10 benefits that your team considers to be critical to the business.
Then have customers mark the top 4, ranking them in ascending order, with numbers from 1 to 4, more important.
From this insight, you’ll be making sure that the benefits you fight so hard to offer your customers when modeling your processes are perceived as valuable to them.
At this point, if you’re doing your research on paper forms, it will have to end here.
But if it’s being done electronically with an option selection form, ideally each of the 4 benefits indicated by the clients as the most important is the subject of new questions, differentiated according to the choice of each of the interviewees.
So, let’s say that one of the benefits indicated by a particular customer was “outstanding customer service.” You should ask this question as follows:
As for our customer service, how would you rate it?
- () Surprising, way beyond my expectations.
- () Beyond my expectations.
- () Within my expectations.
- () Below my expectations.
- () Far below my expectations.
Follow this same template for other benefits pointed out by the client.
By adding these 4 further questions, your customer feedback survey form will be very short, with only 6 questions, but it will give you several important answers:
- Your NPS
- In what benefits your business should focus on to satisfy customers.
- How you’re doing in each of them
3- Using electronic forms of research
Those who use paper surveys will have to do the second round to validate the last 4 questions from their customer feedback survey form.
And, in fact, it will sometimes be inevitable to use paper to reach every audience your business wants. But if you’re thinking about using online forms, remember that the market is full of them, including some free ones, like SurveyMonkey, Typeform, Google Forms and even some with a qualified base of respondents targeted by them, such as MindMiners.
So, after knowing what your customers want and where you need to improve, use HEFLO to model your processes quickly and intuitively. Show to your staff the documentation and align customer expectations.