A customer satisfaction survey is an evaluation that any company serious about serving its customers undertakes. Car manufacturers, telecom service providers and white goods manufacturers conduct a customer satisfaction survey to understand where they stand vis-à-vis competition. In addition to that, a customer satisfaction survey also explains the specific parameters that need improvement.

A typical customer satisfaction survey has a few questions that can help you understand where you stand with regards to the performance of your product or the service that your company personnel are giving your customers. And if these few questions are analyzed in the proper manner, they can reveal all that you want to know.

Survey Questions for Customer Satisfaction Survey
Let us review the few questions that you would want a customer satisfaction survey to answer.

1. What is the overall satisfaction of my customers? How does it compare with the top 2 competing brands?
2. Are there specific sub groups that are more satisfied with my brand than others?
3. Has the satisfaction improved over the years?
4. What are the specific features or attributes that contribute to the overall satisfaction?
5. How does my brand or company perform on these important attributes or parameters?
6. What are my immediate action areas to improve satisfaction?

Now let us therefore consider what a customer satisfaction dashboard should look like and the various tabs that it should have to allow you to obtain a complete understanding of the main findings of your customer satisfaction survey.

Constructing Your Customer Satisfaction Dashboard

• Current overall satisfaction vis-à-vis competition – Here you shall be able to see the overall satisfaction in comparison to competition. This tab also contains displays of subgroups. So if you need to know whether the younger people are more satisfied with your brand than the older ones, you should be able to check this out in the dashboard itself. The same data can be sliced with regards to location, gender and other demographic variables.
• Customer satisfaction trended – A trend chart showing the manner in which the satisfaction of the customers has decreased or increased over the various waves of the survey is essential too. Here again, you may want to separate the trends by various subgroups that you want.
• Importance – At a more diagnostic level, there is a need to understand the specific attributes that contribute to overall satisfaction. Here, there are 2 levels at which the data can be viewed. The first is claimed importance that is captured from the respondent. Derived importance is calculated by carrying out a Driver Analysis wherein the satisfaction scores on specific attributes are tallied. Plotted as a 2×2 grid, the specific attributes fall into the following:



• High Claimed Importance and High Derived Importance – These are the ‘Motivator’ parameters that will increase the satisfaction levels if performance on these is improved.
• High Claimed Importance and Low Derived Importance – These tend to be the ‘Hygienics’. Increasing performance may not result in higher satisfaction but lowering performance may result in a drop in satisfaction levels.
• Low Claimed Importance and High Derived Importance – These are parameters that are ‘Opportunities’ and have not yet become as known as Motivators among competition. Caching in on this knowledge and working on these parameters can ensure higher satisfaction in the future.
• Low Claimed Importance and Low Derived Importance – These are often called the ‘Saver’ parameters since you can optimize the resources that you spend on these parameters.

Analyzing your performance based on these specific groups of parameters – Motivators, Hygienics, Opportunities and Savers can give you a great idea about the action area that you need to focus on.

Survey software such as Mineful’s can help you understand the data in a matter of a few minutes with the help of these powerful survey dashboards that you can automatically create.

In a customer satisfaction survey, typically the overall questions are used to arrive at a customer satisfaction index so that a single number can be used to compare products, stores, brands, or companies. If previous experience is lacking, one may need to arrive at the specific parameters of evaluation after conducting a small qualitative research with experts and customers in the industry. For example, broad areas covered in an employee satisfaction survey include compensation, work environment, policies, relationship with superior, estimate of future growth and the like.

A customer satisfaction survey may include aspects like responsiveness, attendant behavior and demeanor, performance, billing and more. A box plot of claimed importance and derived importance (calculated by regressing the performance of specific attributes with overall satisfaction) along with the performance on each attribute can actually tell you the whole story.

Customer Satisfaction Survey

• Overall satisfaction based on a typical 5 point scale
• Likelihood to recommend on a typical 5 point scale
• Likelihood of repeat purchase on a typical 5 point scale
• Assessment of competitive advantage
• Claimed importance of various parameters on a scale
• Assessment of performance for client brand/company and competition for the same set of attributes used in the importance question above

You can access any of the following customer satisfaction survey from our survey library, check them out:

- Customer Satisfaction Survey
- Customer Service Survey
- Customer Satisfaction Survey – for Service Firm

Customer satisfaction scorecards are becoming an increasingly popular way to make critical information available to a broad range of employees.

A scorecard or dashboard in a management information system serves the same purpose as the dashboard in a car. It displays complex operating data in a way that is easy to read and interpret. Dashboards require no special knowledge of statistics or information technology. They use widely understood presentation methods such as line graphs and bar charts. Their ability to summarize large amounts of data make them a powerful tool to help managers track customer satisfaction.

A typical customer satisfaction survey asks people to express their opinions about such things as quality, price, and ease of purchase. To be useful, the data generated by such a survey needs to be summarized and interpreted in a way that managers will understand. Dashboards perform this important function. A typical scorecard might track three categories of data on customer satisfaction: Key Indicators, Overall Satisfaction, and Reasons for Dissatisfaction. Instead of trying to analyze responses to 15 or 20 survey questions, a manager can tell at a glance how the company is doing in keeping its customers satisfied.

Slicing and Dicing Data
Dashboards offer simple ways to sort data. For example, a dashboard used by a chain of craft stores might display “helpfulness of sales staff” as a key indicator of customer service. Marketing executives could use this indicator to determine which stores are doing a good job of helping customers and which stores need to provide their staff additional training. This key indicator might also be sorted by customer service representative or by type of product purchased. Marketing executives might discover that some customer service representatives are not doing a satisfactory job, or they might find that customers want more help when shopping for certain types of products.

Customer satisfaction scorecards can also show how key indicators are related to overall customer satisfaction. For example, a dashboard might show that “knowledgeable staff” is more directly correlated with overall satisfaction than “ease of purchase.” This information might lead managers to devote more resources to training customer service representatives rather than adding cashiers.

Dashboards can also highlight trouble spots. For example, Mineful’s software can provide a robust analysis of “reasons for dissatisfaction” along with simple displays to identify areas that are most in need of improvement.

Tracking Trends
One of the most useful features of dashboards is their ability to illustrate trends. Businesses typically use dashboards to identify changes from month to month or from one quarter to the next. Is “overall satisfaction” trending up or down so far this year? Are the main reasons for customer dissatisfaction different from what they were a year ago? Which of our stores has made the greatest gains in customer satisfaction since we initiated our new training program? These are the kinds of questions that can be easily answered with dashboards.

Customer Satisfaction Scorecards from Mineful
Mineful’s dashboards enable clients to determine what types of information will be available to different types of employees. For example, a store manager might see data sorted by customer service representative, while a regional manager might see data sorted by store. The key to getting the most out of dashboards is to provide the right information to the right people in a format they can easily understand and use.

In an ideal world, retailers would like to use surveys to gain a better understanding of satisfaction and preferences for different types of customers — for example, plus-size women, do-it-yourselfers, or fitness enthusiasts. Mineful has engineered a fast, low cost solution to this problem. Mineful enables retailers to integrate survey data with information about customers including purchasing patterns, demographics, market segments, and location. The result is a clearer picture of different market segments.

Here’s an example of how a retailer might use this information. Suppose a retailer wanted to know if the sales staff in some departments or stores needed additional training. A customer satisfaction survey might ask questions such as:

• Did your salesperson seem knowledgeable?
• Did your salesperson help you select a product?
• Was your salesperson able to answer your questions?

Mineful allows the responses to these questions to be easily integrated with data about what customers purchased. Then the retailer can see which departments need more highly trained staff. The retailer could also determine which types of customers need the most assistance.
Survey data integration can also help a retailer see how customer satisfaction differs by market segment. For example, a survey might ask:

• Did you feel you had a broad enough range of products to choose from?
• Were you satisfied with the overall quality of the product selection?
• Were products displayed in a way that made shopping easy?

When responses to these questions are integrated with sales data, it will be easy for a retailer to see which markets are being served adequately and which departments need to redesign their product displays. Other survey questions might help a retailer identify which segments of their customers are more concerned with quality than price, and vice versa.

If a retailer attempted to ask for this information as part of a survey, it would create two problems. First, respondents might not be able to provide accurate information about such things as how often they shop or how much they typically spend. Second, asking for such information would make the survey considerably longer, and the longer the survey, the less likely it is that people will complete it.

Once a survey is completed, Mineful makes it easy to display the results. Users can create charts and graphs with just a few clicks. They can choose to display results using survey dashboards. Dashboards are visual displays of data that are easy to interpret. They can be adapted for different users to make them even more effective. For example, regional sales managers might see customer satisfaction charts for several stores, store managers might see charts for their own stores, and department managers might see charts for their own departments.

This approach to sharing survey results can help employees at all levels stay focused on the customer’s satisfaction, wants, and needs.

It has been a difficult decade for the hospitality business. The awful events of September 11, 2001, led to a sharp decline in leisure travel. Just when business was getting back to normal, the economy turned sour, forcing both business and leisure travelers to cut back on their plans.

In an effort to cut costs to cope with the decline in business, some hotels have reduced staff and eliminated some amenities for guests. But at what point do such cutbacks threaten guest satisfaction and lead to even further erosion in business? How can hotels boost customer loyalty by focusing on improving things that guests really care about? Those are the crucial questions that hotels must consider as they try to control costs while at the same time keeping their guests satisfied.

Knowing what to cut
In February 2009, research company TNS conducted a survey of 2,500 adults to determine how cuts in hotel services might affect their choice of hotels (http://www.quirks.com/articles/2009/20090505.aspx). Specifically, the survey asked about five types of reductions in services:

When people look for ways to trim their expenses in tough economic times, they turn first to discretionary spending, and at the top of the list for many people is money spent eating out. Most restaurants have taken a big hit in the current economic slowdown, but many are holding their own and a few are actually prospering. For example, in the fourth quarter of 2008, McDonald’s reported that its sales increased 5 percent in the U.S. and 7.2 percent globally. Why are some restaurants doing well while most are struggling? One of the answers is effective market research.

Focusing on value
It should be no surprise that customers are paying more attention to value in these challenging times. When people spend less on non-essentials, they want to be sure the money they do spend buys something worthwhile. But what does value mean to restaurant patrons? Is it primarily the quality of the food or the quality of the service or is it something else that might be a little harder to define? Restaurant research provides some interesting answers to these questions.
At its most basic level, value means meeting expectations. People have definite expectations for different types of restaurants — fast food, casual dining and fine dining. In these tough times, some restaurant managers might feel tempted to cut back in some areas, especially staff expenses. But if a restaurant fails to live up to customer expectations for service because it has cut staff, it will have a hard time keeping customers.

Creating a satisfying experience
Restaurant surveys that attempt to measure customer perceptions of value often focus on some obvious things. Was the food hot? Was it served promptly? How long did you wait to be served? These are important questions, but they represent only part of what is involved in restaurant satisfaction.

Most people go to a restaurant because they are looking for a certain type of experience. They might be looking for fun or elegance or just the pleasure of enjoying certain sights, smells, and tastes. Even patrons of fast food restaurants are looking for more than food. The kids’ menu at McDonald’s features “Happy Meals,” but adults want to have happy meals too. An effective customer survey attempts to evaluate all the factors that go into creating restaurant satisfaction.

Building customer loyalty
Customer loyalty is important for any type of business at any point in the business cycle, but it is especially important for the restaurant business when times are tough. Restaurant research has shown that customers who have a “highly satisfactory” dining experience are twice as likely to return to a restaurant than customers who say their experience was just “satisfactory.” They are also three times as likely to recommend the restaurant to their friends.

Highly satisfied customers also spend more, especially on items such as appetizers and deserts. This suggests that they may be enjoying their dining experience so much that they want to prolong it. Highly satisfied customers also tend to tip more, which in turn leads to highly satisfied wait staff.

So how can a restaurant determine if it is creating a highly satisfying experience for its customers? Some restaurants hire “mystery diners,” while others use comment cards or questionnaires. Another highly effective alternative is to conduct an online survey of recent diners. Online surveys provide a convenient way to ask about a variety of factors that affect customer satisfaction. Survey results can easily be analyzed to determine which combination of factors is most likely to create highly satisfied customers. See this restaurant satisfaction survey example to help you get started: http://restaurantsatisfaction.nisurvey.com.

Long-term restaurant trends
In times like these, it is understandable that restaurant managers are focused primarily on short-term results. It’s still important, though, to pay attention to long-term restaurant trends. In recent years, restaurant customers have shown a growing interest in two things: greater convenience and healthier menu choices. These trends are likely to continue.

It’s one of the most basic laws of marketing: Your best source of additional business is your existing customers. But how do you keep them coming back? The key is customer satisfaction.

Marketers have always recognized the importance of customer satisfaction, but in the past it was a fuzzy concept, hard to measure and analyze. Fortunately, retail marketing software and analytics have made satisfaction metrics widely available to businesses large and small.
What marketers are finding is not surprising: There is a direct correlation between customer satisfaction and repeat business. In addition, satisfied customers come back more often and a more likely to move up to more expensive product offerings.

Measuring Satisfaction
The first step in measuring customer satisfaction is to create a survey. Drawing on your business knowledge and business analytics, develop a list of questions that address customer concerns. Customer satisfaction surveys typically use Likert-scale questions. Responses to a Likert-scale question typically range from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. For example, customers might be asked how strongly they agree or disagree with a statement like this: “The restrooms at Bob’s Burgers are well-maintained.”

Once you have surveyed a significant number of customers, you need to decide what do with your data. Survey responses will tell you what customers think about a range of specific issues, but how can you get a broader sense of what customer satisfaction means for you? A statistical tool called factor analysis can help you see the big picture.

Basically, factor analysis reveals relationships between survey questions, so that instead of considering thirty different specific issues, you can focus on four or five common themes. By grouping questions, factor analysis lets you see how specific issues come together to form a pattern. For example, factor analysis might group five questions that are all related to your facilities. If most people strongly disagree that you have adequate parking and they strongly disagree that your facilities are convenient, then you can get a sense of how you can improve customer satisfaction — expand your parking lot. This is an oversimplified example. A real factor analysis can give you a valuable picture of your strengths and weaknesses in terms of customer satisfaction.

The Big Picture
One widely used template for grouping responses to customer satisfaction surveys is the RATER model, which includes the following factors:

You have conducted a well-designed customer satisfaction survey, and you’ve collected mountains of data. Now what? You’re not just going to let the results sit on a shelf in your office, but do you have a comprehensive plan to get the most value out of your investment? Here are a few suggestions about the next steps to take with the results of your survey.

Respond Quickly to Urgent Customer Problems
Often a customer satisfaction survey will include a few questions meant to identify issues that need to be addressed immediately. For example, a hotel chain might ask how long it took a customer to reach a representative on its toll free reservations line. If this is a crucial issue for the company (and it should be), then this question will be flagged for immediate analysis and action.

Other factors that might call for a quick response are very low overall ratings or the use of key words (such as “dirty” or “rude”) in written answers on the survey. If the survey was not anonymous, it may be worthwhile to contact people who responded very negatively to gain a better understanding of what went wrong. This will also show dissatisfied customers that you take their concerns seriously and you want to do something about them.

Make Someone Responsible
One way to sort responses to a customer service questionnaire is by area of responsibility in your organization. For example, certain questions may point out problems with accounting or sales or billing. By making individuals responsible for dealing with specific issues that come up in a survey, you are much more likely to get the issues resolved. If everyone is responsible for solving a problem, then no one is.

Assigning responsibility for specific issues also addresses a common problem with customer satisfaction surveys: the results don’t filter down to people who can do something about them. Too often managers circulate summaries of survey results or key findings without giving front-line staff the information they need to improve customer service.

Implement Customer-Focused Changes
Any response to customer feedback should be developed with the customer in mind. This includes setting goals for improving customer satisfaction. For example, if a customer purchase survey identifies shipping delays as a problem for your online store, you need to do more than just revamp your shipping procedures. You need to set specific goals for shipping a certain percent of orders within a day or two.

When you make customer-focused changes, let customers know about them — especially those customers who took the time and trouble to respond to your survey. To keep your message positive, present the changes as an improvement in service rather than a response to a problem.
Keep Track and Keep Asking
It’s easy to think of customer satisfaction as something you check on with a survey once a quarter or twice a year. But to get the most of out of surveys, you need to constantly keep track of how well your organization is responding to the issues customers raise. You also need to keep thinking about how to refine your survey process so that you can continue to get the information you need to keep your customers satisfied.

Whether you’re selling hot dogs or homeowners insurance, keeping your customers satisfied is essential to the survival and success of your business. Fortunately, the latest online survey software simplifies the task of collecting and analyzing data on customer satisfaction. These are powerful tools, but to use them most effectively you need to be careful not to define customer satisfaction too narrowly. Let’s take a broad look at this topic and then consider some specific aspects of customer satisfaction that you should probably be measuring.

Online surveys have transformed the field of market research. Retailers in particular are discovering how the latest internet survey software can provide valuable insights into how customers make decisions.

Going Beyond Sales Data
Traditionally retailers have relied mainly on sales data to determine their customers’ preferences. While this approach certainly has merit, it leaves many questions unanswered. Would customers prefer different brands if you offered them? Would they visit your stores more often if their shopping experience was more pleasant? Would they come more often if stores were open longer hours? These are the kinds of questions that online surveys can address.

A simple “Where would you go to buy…?” survey can give you a good idea of how customers think of your stores. In this type of survey you give customers four or five options — your store and three or four of your competitors. Then you ask a series of questions. If you operated a department store, you might ask: