Chapter 2: Writing an Effective Survey

If you’ve read chapter one of our playbook, you know that providing an excellent customer experience is essential to success. Regardless of your industry, if your customers aren’t happy, you’re not going to do well. We ended chapter one with the notion that you must measure the sentiment of your customers in order to effectively manage the level of service you’re providing.

Measuring in this sense means actively seeking out feedback from your customers, and tracking that information over time across locations. You can learn a lot about your customers and your employees if you simply ask the right questions.

The key word in that last sentence is: right.

And that leads us to the second chapter of The Customer Experience Playbook: Writing an Effective Survey. As the saying goes, “garbage in is garbage out”. So what follows are some best practices—as well as some common pitfalls to avoid—that you can reference as you create your survey.

Enjoy!

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Let’s create a better experience

What we’ll explore:

ü  Starting with a plan ü  Focus areas

ü  Surveys as marketing tools ü  Common pitfalls

ü  Using scales ü  Importance of demographics

ü  Survey flow and length ü  Designing for mobile

Sole property of Elevate | September 2014

-Joe Stanton CEO - Elevate

It Starts With a Plan

It starts with a plan

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Start With the End in Mind

What do you hope to achieve by implementing a customer satisfaction program?

What questions or concerns do you have regarding customer satisfaction in your business?

Starting there allows you to create a customer satisfaction program that helps you:

-  Align all staff members around your goals

-  Stay focused on your key objectives

-  Create and track meaningful changes

It starts with a plan

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Focus on Specific Areas You Can Actually Impact To more effectively tie satisfaction results to staff and processes, get specific with survey questions.

Target questions to specific areas of your business. Associate survey questions to specific shifts or touchpoints so you can measure performance and improve.

For example, restaurants might consider questions concerning service in the following:

- What part of the day did the visit, breakfast, lunch, happy hour or dinner? Survey questions should target specific day and week parts.

-  In what area of the establishment were they served, the bar, the dining room, the patio, or takeout?

Also, don’t ask questions you are unable to fix like whether or not there is sufficient or convenient parking.

It starts with a plan

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Your Survey Is Also a Marketing Tool

Use the survey to market to your customers.

Your customers become aware of your focus on customer satisfaction when the are asked to share their feedback. Use the opportunity to:

-  Let your customers know that you’re listening and you value their feedback.

-  Connect with your customers by asking them to subscribe to your email communications, or take a social action such as a follow or a like.

- On average, over 60% of survey takers opt-in to eClubs or email programs.1

- About 20% of survey takers will ‘Like’ the brand on Facebook from the survey, if asked to do so.1

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Survey Questions 101

Survey questions 101

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Avoid Common Pitfalls While Creating Your Questions

Pitfall Don’t Do

Using leading words How satisfied were you with our excellent service?

How satisfied were you with the overall service you received?

Double-barreled questions How satisfied were you with the cleanliness of the store and restrooms?

How satisfied were you with the cleanliness of our store? How satisfied were you with the cleanliness of the restrooms?

Being too vague How satisfied were you with the food?

How satisfied were you with… -  Freshness of the food? -  Taste of the food? -  Variety of food options

Survey questions 101

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Use the Right Scale For Responses

Best Practices to Consider

Use Yes/No questions only when the answer is concrete. If Maybe is a possible response, a rating scale should be used.

Be sure to include all possible responses. For example, if asking about cleanliness of restrooms, be sure to include ‘Did not use’ as an option.

It is okay to mix up the rating scales. Five-point scales provide the best customer experience, but you can still use a 10-point scale when asking about customers’ Likelihood to Recommend, should you desire a Net Promoter Score.

Survey questions 101

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Keep It Light on Demographics

Demographics can help you better understand the results but only ask for the demographics you will use to further understand your customers opinions.

For example, if you suspect that marital status has no bearing on a customer’s satisfaction then don’t ask for it. Also, if you can’t tailor your service by gender, for example, then don’t ask for it.

Demographics that may be useful in retail include age, location, and occasion for the visit (planned or unplanned?).

Survey questions 101

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The Power of Open Ends

Color commentary allows customers to provide feedback in their own words.

But why are open ended questions important?

-  They uncover new or emerging issues

-  Clearly articulate the customer’s perspective on a known issue

- Great comments can motivate employees and are morale boosters during staff meetings

Survey questions 101

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Survey Flow

Sample

START

General Location

Date Time

Visit Details Service Type Department

Reason for Visit

Specifics Product Service

Environment

Demographics Loyalty

Likelihood to Recommend Likelihood to

Revisit

Marketing Like/Follow

Email Sign-up

END

Survey questions 101

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The Length of Your Survey Matters

Find a balance between getting enough data and pleasing customers.

Drop-off rates vary by device, but generally a survey that takes less than 3 minutes is ideal.1

About 20 survey questions, with one being open-ended will take a user roughly 3 minutes to complete.1

Creating a survey that is too short will not yield enough actionable data, but one that is too long will upset customers and they will not complete.

Completion Rates based on minutes to complete survey

44%

87%

61%

92% 95%

1 min. 2 min. 3 min. 4 min. 5 min.

Completion rates decline significantly as survey length increases1

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Design for Mobile First

Design for mobile first

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More Customers Are Using Mobile to Take Surveys

Meet your customers where they are.

Like the majority of Americans, your customers are using mobile technology to access the internet at a rate which is quickly surpassing access through PCs.

- 9 out of 10 American adults own a mobile phone.2

-  60% of those adults access the internet via their mobile phone, with 34% accessing the internet only through mobile.2

-  About 50% of surveys are taken via a mobile device – most of them on mobile phones.1

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Other Important Considerations

Simple URL

20 Question Maximum

Use Large Fonts

Touchscreen Friendly

Simple Design

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Coming Next

In Chapter 3, we’ll explore …

ü  Getting customers to provide feedback ü  Choosing the right incentive

ü  Different invitation methods ü  Creating awareness

Chapter 3 coming soon!

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Learn more about Elevate…

Sources:

1.  Elevate Customer Data 2.  Pew Research

Elevate is the easiest and most affordable way for restaurants and retailers to survey customers who recently dined in one of their restaurants or shopped in one of their stores. It allows all sizes of restaurants and retailers to: -  Get immediate feedback from real customers; -  Follow up with upset customers to get them to come back; and -  Have better conversations about performance. Start your free 30 day trial today. There are no setup fees and no contracts. Learn more about Elevate by visiting www.elevateresearch.com. Connect with us:

Sole property of Elevate | September 2014

let’s create a better experience

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