Good customer service is life blood of any business. Although new customers are important good customer service will help generate customer loyalty and repeat business. With each satisfied customer your business is likely to win many more customers through recommendations and remember, if you are not taking care of your customers, your competition will.

A Customer Satisfaction survey will help you not only identify problem areas but will also demonstrate to your customers that you care and are proactive in looking for ways to improve service that you provide.

Where to start?

Objective - Before you start compiling your survey you should first consider what objectives of survey are, in that way you will remain focused and find it easier to decide what questions to ask.

Analysis - In addition to objective consider also how you will analyse answers having completed survey. Keep in mind that ‘closed’ questions (where respondent is asked to choose from a limited number of responses) are easier to analyse than ‘open’ questions (where respondent can reply in anyway they want). Much will depend on volume of respondents, higher volume more important it is to have an easy method of analysing results.

Opportunity – Keep in mind that as well as obtaining valuable market research data customer surveys are also a good way to publicise aspects of your service that your customers may not be aware of. After you have drafted your survey read through survey from a market research view point and check that you are asking right questions in right way and that with feedback information you will be able to make informed decisions. Then, read through survey from a marketing view point, check that you have phrased each question so that every opportunity has been taken to promote your business? The ideal question will perform following three functions:-

Market research–provide valuable feedback to help you improve your customer satisfaction levels and in turn your business Marketing –promote aspects of your business Information/Education–advertise a service that you provide that your customers may not have been unaware of

For example:-

Do you find in-store baby changing facilities useful?

By asking this question not only will store receive good feedback on facility they provide but they will also advertise their baby changing facilities and promote themselves as a family friendly store beyond those customers who have a specific need for facility provided.

Warts and all – to benefit most from a customer survey you need to be prepared to dig deep and accept worst. A customer satisfaction survey should be designed to highlight problems so that they can be addressed; regular customer satisfaction will prevent complacency and will also give early warning on where your competitors initiatives may be loosing you business.

What to ask?

1. Multiple Rewards Aim to be rewarded multiple times for a single effort. Money can be recovered but time cannot. Time gets spent. You can't put it in a bank and you can't earn more of it. Wherever possible, you should look for ways to get paid/rewarded multiple times for each hour you invest. You will never be truly independent if your income comes from your own time and labour so package your knowledge as a product. Once you have aproduct you can sell your packaged time again and again.

2. Mistakes Are Gifts Mistakes are nothing more than "Learning Opportunities". The best way to learn more and grow more is to make more mistakes. Mistakes are unavoidable when you're learning so adopt a ready, fire, aim approach to decisions and learn as you take action. If it doesn't work you can easily make another decision to put things right again.