  |
Writing a Customer Satisfaction Survey or Questionnaire
One of the challenges when writing customer satisfaction survey questions, is that you must not impose on your customers any biases that you might already have about the way they think and/or act. Customer Research Technology undertake thousands of customer satisfaction surveys a year utilising a range of interactive survey devices and online. Here are some ‘top tips’ we’ve learned from customer survey examples over the years:
• If you want to assess the quality of a question, imagine for example, that 50% answer A, and 25% answer B. Consider; "What does this tell you?" And, "What will you do with the feedback?" Doing this for all the questions and answers will help you identify if there is an ambiguity or anomaly that would cause you to disregard the result.
• A four point scale is more likely to give you valuable data than a five point scale, as responders often have a tendency to go for the middle non-offensive option.
• Test your customer survey questions out on a handful of people outside of your company, to ensure you haven’t assumed knowledge of any industry jargon.
• Check that you have covered every eventuality with the answer set in your customer survey forms. E.g., "How did you travel here today?" A) Car B) Public Transport C) Motorbike D) Walked... Someone who has travelled by bicycle would get to this question and probably go no further, thereby not completing the survey.
Tip: How about adding 'Other' and then asking what form of transport they used by Free Form Text.
• Use demographic questions to segment your respondents. 90% of your population maybe happy with quality of food, but 100% of males under 25 may not be. If you are using technology for your satisfaction survey you will also be able to segment by time.
• Keep your customer feedback from short and simple. Often companies fall into the trap of designing a survey asking all their burning questions at once and wear the customers out, ending in a mass of uncompleted questionnaires. Instead, why not undertake a number of focussed satisfaction surveys throughout the year with a maximum of 15 questions.
Make sure you are using vocabulary that your customers understand. Don't get caught up using company-only vernacular or acronyms. Be clear, direct and straightforward when designing questionnaires, so everyone can understand your customer satisfaction questions.
Tip: Why not 'test-drive' your survey with some customers before you launch it to the entire survey participant population. Also view the section of Measuring Customer Satisfaction.
