Make sure your company is using #consumer response surveys correctly

Make sure your consumer response surveys are actually helping your organization instead of just hiding the problems.

Download original article here

As someone living in a house with seemingly constant problems with their internet provider, I have spent a good portion of my life on the phone with assorted customer service representatives. It is undeniable that over the years, the people I end up speaking to on the phone have become much easier to understand and much more courteous. Of course, this is appreciated, however has it actually improved the service I’ve received?

I was at first very surprised when the person helping me went off on a tangent about about what a lovely person I was, asked how school was going, what I studied, etc – until the conversation came to a close and they informed me where to find the customer survey to review their service. Aha.

While of course this kind of treatment makes me feel a bit more charitable towards the person on the phone, it doesn’t always improve the service. I have dealt with many people who have known surprisingly little about what they were supposed to be helping me with, were baffled by my questions, and the epic hold times were as present as ever.

As long as customer surveys are used correctly, they can be very useful to a company. What managers have to be careful about, however, is to make note of not only how likeable representatives are, but to put just as much focus on getting respondents to be honest about how helpful and effective the person they spoke to was. Many times I have found myself wanting to write a brutally honest answer about how I spoke to someone who was essentially useless, but held back because Jim or Sue was just too nice and I didn’t want to get them in trouble.

The effect this has is that oftentimes customers can be less than content with the service they received or the product they purchased, but the company doesn’t get to hear about that. In fact, there is a danger of customers switching their service provider or buying somewhere else next time without ever letting the brand know the reason for their defection.

What should you take away from this? Even when you think your customer response surveys are working, make sure you continue to focus on the capabilities and effectiveness of your employees as well as how good their phone manners are. 

Download Peter Gurney’s article on customer survey programs here

Peter Gurney, Director of Voice of the Consumer for QVC Inc. will be speaking at Loyalty World USA in Las Vegas in October.

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