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Customer Satisfaction Measurement

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by paddy

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We are a software solutions company serving the manufacturing and service sector and want to put in place a survey for measuring customer satisfaction.

Can anyone help be pointing in the right direction on how to get this started, what questions to ask, how to test their validity and so on. Any help will be appreciated.

5 replies

by oz_media

I don't have a set form that I use myself, it changes as I am working with various demographics.

As far as customer survey/satisfaction forms, there are two solutions I would suggest.
First, being a sogtware development company I will assume that scripting and cgi parsing is not the issue but more HOW to survey and WHAT to ask.

I would suggest either sending a follow up form AFTER the customer call/e-mail, or you could have a web based pop-up survey if they are using online support. IBM has this after using an online troubleshooter, as does Compaq/HP.

Typical question would be:

a) Was you problem resolved? Yes No Comments___

b) Was your issue resolved in a timely and professional manner? Yes No Comments ___

c) Was your support respresentative knoweldgable regarding your issue? Yes No Comments ___
--Representatives name?___ (if available of course)

d) Will you use this method to resolve further issues if they arise? Yes No Comments ___

e) Do you have any additional feedback or comments that would help us improve our level of service/support in the future? __________

You may choose to remove comments fter each question and just have general comments filed at the end of your survey.

Obviously you wouild also require additional contact info such as;
Case number (if available)_______
Contact name and email info.
OS_______
Issue resolved____

Obviously some of these fileds would be optional but customer name and email should be required.

By asking and confirming a customers personal info, they are less apt to offer misleading or incorrect information. Os and type of problem would be good exmples of optional info.

I don't know if this is the type of response you are loking for but again, I assume the scripts used and method of delivery is trivial as you are software solutions company, I'm sure you have better ideas than me, a basic CGI guy.

by mmbarreca

We provide software and services to the healthcare sector and customer satisfaction has always been one of my focus points. Even though it is not tech's responsibility to solely conduct CRM, I took it upon myself to make monthly calls to our clients so that at least I would know what was happening. I further developed surveys (since I am also the company trainer) that I left as anonymous for clients to answer on support, training, sales, you name it. Some of the questions I ranked 1-5 so that I could average these in an Excel spreadsheet and see the trends. Other questions, I left open for the clients to discuss/explain/comment at their leisure.

by dc_guy

Most of the answers you get to traditional surveys are subjective. It might be more useful to point the respondent in a more objective direction by asking different questions. How many times in the last week (pick a time period judiciously) did the software fail to accomplish the task you set for it in such a way as to cause you a serious problem that was impossible to work around or required compromising your objective? ...a major problem that you overcame with great difficulty and caused major repercussions? ...a troublesome problem that wasted your time on a work-around or follow-up? ...a minor problem that annoyed you and will be aggravating if it recurs often? You can take the results of this poll directly to your QA department.

by oz_media

These are questions you need answered. From a sales and ,arketing point of view, the customer wont see this so much as an attempt to better the company but address ong term issues.

Company's that sell a products do not want to have people even THINK they would waste people's time or a difficult problem that had major repercussions, sorry but the whole idea creates a negative thougth process. Although the questions are open, they are implying a negative statement.

I would like to see a sales rep after hearing his customer was surveyed that way, actually I probaly wouldn't. It just creates a shadow of doubt that the customer MAY have a good experience now, but what does he have to look forward to? Wasted time or possibly major repercussions? Too negative.

This is a nice way to jump on QA and get their asses in gear but not a good way to present your company. Almost pessimistic.

Was your problem resolved in a timely and professional manner? This boasts that your company provides great service and your not afraid to ask the customer if they agree.

Customers don't need details, they need reinforcement that they have made a good decision. If I was asked if the product ahd caused me greif, I would ask "why, is it suposed to? Going to? Do I want it now? What's going to happen?" DOUBT.

If asked if the problem was resolved professionally, I may think the rep was a little condescending, the product MAY be kinda flaky but I will often answer yes as a generality or to simplify the matter unless something horrible happened, in which case you would hear about it.

Small internal details should be ironed out and noticed by the company and it's management,not the customer. The customer experience is more important, would you call back? Did you get help? That's what I'd want to hear from my customers.

by dc_guy

...your customers are the only people who actually know whether you are any good at building software. Questions of this type are common in an internal-customer relationship. There needs to be some way to collect the same data in the case of external customers.

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