Thursday, October 11, 2018
Customer satisfaction questionnaire: how to establish constructive feedback with your customers
While the value of collecting customer feedback on products and services is well established, one question often comes up: how do you create a satisfaction questionnaire?
An essential feedback management tool, customer satisfaction questionnaires need to be precisely designed and anticipated to obtain the expected responses. SatisFactory, a leading feedback management company, offers you all the advice you need to draw up your surveys.
Customer satisfaction survey: a necessary groundwork
The development of your customer satisfaction survey doesn't begin with the actual writing of the survey, but in the early stages of the project. In fact, there are several elements to take into consideration before you can create your customer satisfaction questionnaire. Let's take a look at these elements:
- Objectives: your customer satisfaction survey should have one defined objective, and several optional sub-objectives. This will enable you to give your survey a guideline and produce results that clearly meet an expectation, from which it will be possible to take appropriate action.
- The target: once you've defined your objective, you'll need to identify your target audience. To optimize your response rate and the quality of responses, you need to address your questionnaire to a specific segment.
- The channel : Finally, the last parameter to consider is the channel through which you wish to deliver your satisfaction survey. This will obviously depend in part on the target audience, but also on the type of product or service you're providing.
Market research questionnaire: survey design
Once all the preparatory work has been done, it's time to start designing your market research questionnaire. For this, you can call on the services of a specialist, as there are a number of rules to follow, at the risk of losing your respondents and obtaining poor-quality answers.
Rule 1: a simple survey
The consumer feedback you aim to obtain via your survey will enable you to improve your products or services. To obtain clear responses, you need to be able to offer a clear, simple and user-friendly questionnaire.
Rule no. 2: a short survey
The length of your customer satisfaction questionnaire is an important variable to keep in mind, for several reasons. Firstly, your customers' time is precious: they will only respond if your survey lasts no longer than 5-10 minutes. Secondly, you need to retain the respondent until the end of the survey. It's important to keep them focused on the survey, so that you get relevant, usable responses.
Rule 3: use the right scales
It is common practice in customer satisfaction surveys to ask questions whose answers have to be chosen from a scale of values or propositions (e.g. from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree"). These scales need to be selected with care, as they can lead to biased responses. For example, 5- or 7-point scales are preferred, starting with the most negative responses and working towards the most positive.
Rule 4: remain objective
Finally, it's vital to avoid bias in your questionnaire as much as possible. When you define your objectives, you may have an idea of the result you want to achieve. This can lead to questions that are too closed, or that steer the respondent in a direction they might not otherwise have taken. So make sure you keep your questions neutral, and include one or two open-ended questions to really give your customer a say on a particular subject, to enrich the debate.
If you have any questions about the market research questionnaire or feedback management, please don't hesitate to contact us by e-mail at contact@satisfactory.fr.
