Corporate So

Surveys

Typical reasons for conducting a survey are to measure customer satisfaction, needs, expectations and priorities regarding a concept, product or service.  Surveys may also be conducted to assess performance such as in the case of surveys that employ the mystery shopping technique.

Customer Satisfaction

A clear and detailed understanding of customer satisfaction provides the information needed to plan and implement programmes of change and improvement. Surveys can provide insights regarding the failings and success factors behind services and products.  These insights in turn provide an informed basis for planning and implementing improvements.  Surveys can also be used to assess competitive standing and feed into the generation of new and improved products, services and service delivery.  

Surveys can be used to assess service levels and identify opportunities for improvements.  Maintaining and improving service levels dissuades existing customers from defecting and attracts new customers. High levels of customer service can also provide a “buffer zone” enabling an organisation to introduce changes such as price increases or service restructuring with less risk. Customer satisfaction surveys are an important tool in business planning and continuous improvement.

Customer satisfaction surveys must be designed to ensure that the data is meaningful and valid.  This requires careful consideration of a number of issues including:

• Type of survey e.g. transaction versus relationship surveys;

• Survey Design e.g. question type, language & layout;

• Use of benchmarks and other comparative measures;

• Evaluation of results e.g. prioritization and action planning;

• Delivery and measurement of benefit.

The benefits of actively managing customer satisfaction are manifold. If you would like information about the ways in which we could help you, please contact us.

Corporate Solutions has conducted national and international surveys using postal, web-based, telephone and face to face methods. Recent clients have included GlaxoSmithKline, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Nokia, Department of Trade Industry, Office for Government Commerce and Fidelity Investments.  The results of a recently conducted survey of customer service levels (151Kb ) is available to be downloaded.