Consumer feedback is a very rich source of information that presents business opportunities, reveals problems and even offers solutions to solve them.
This sharing of experiences and opinions often happens spontaneously through the initiative of customers to collaborate with the improvement of the product or service being consumed. However, the information contained in these feedbacks is too valuable to be collected at random.It was then that, from the search for details that offer advantages in a competitive market, however small they may seem, an active way of collecting consumer opinion was created: the satisfaction survey. It is an essential tool for companies that seek to measure the efficiency of their strategies, enabling changes during the execution of their planning so that they never stray from their main objectives. In our article, we’ll talk about all aspects of satisfaction surveys and the best way to apply them to bring your business closer to your customers.
What is a satisfaction survey?
It is one of the most efficient ways to measure the quality and perception of what a company is delivering to its public. Questionnaires with objective, quantitative and qualitative questions help businesses understand and measure customer satisfaction.To better understand the importance of this concept, let’s check the definition of satisfaction presented by Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller: “The feeling of pleasure or disappointment resulting from the comparison of the performance expected by the product (or result) in relation to the expectations of the person”. Aligning expectations of what your consumers expect from your product or service can be the difference between success and failure for a business. The ideal is to carry out a satisfaction survey that extends to all your communication channels, applied to customers who closed a deal and also to people who did not buy or hire your service. This data is essential for managers and entrepreneurs to make decisions consistent with their audience. Corrections and changes in strategies, whether in the process of elaboration or already in progress, can be carried out considering which of the KPIs (performance indicators) need more attention.
What is the importance of the satisfaction survey for business?
Every opportunity to collect data that provides detailed and relevant assessments for your business is essential in a very competitive market, where a detail makes the difference. Furthermore, ensuring that your customers are satisfied is a very effective way to influence others to consume your product or service. Therefore, investing in the satisfaction of your audience is investing in results. Check out some of the main factors that make the satisfaction survey a strategic tool for businesses that prioritize results.
Understanding customer behavior
Information about how your audience thinks, acts and perceives your brand is essential to creating an effective sales funnel. This data that will help you understand your customers’ pains and desires can be found in a satisfaction survey. After collecting and analyzing the information offered, it will be possible to map the most relevant issues for your audience and create personalized shopping journeys for each audience profile found in your research.
Ensure brand reputation
A bad brand reputation can be costly. The marketing strategies and communication costs of a business can be wasted if a problem happens recurrently with customers.The criticisms originating from the customers’ point of view are essential to understand how your brand is being perceived by the public and to identify which errors are preventing the growth of your enterprise. When conducting a satisfaction survey, you must understand that not all opinions will be positive. In fact, it is necessary to see these criticisms in a professional manner, after all, negative opinions play a more important role in revealing which are the aspects in which the brand falls short. From this point on, solutions can be derived from the information, bypassing the identified problems.
Avoid complaints and actions that could harm the company
The effort to get your customers to recommend your brand is big, but it’s worth it. To achieve this goal it is necessary to offer quality services and products, excellent service
Focus your resources on sectors that most need improvement
A manager’s role is to manage their resources to find solutions that need priority in the short, medium and long term. Investing time in superficial problems while more serious problems exist can have a big impact on your business bottom line. The satisfaction survey is a tool that will provide managers with the necessary information to decide which solutions should become a priority.
What is the best time to carry out a satisfaction survey?
Just as research can be conducted across the different channels your business uses to communicate with customers, it can also be conducted at different times. The best opportunity may vary according to the purpose of the research. If the purpose is to evaluate the service offered, do the research right after contacting the customer. Is the objective to assess whether a product was delivered on time, its quality or how well a service was provided? Review hours later. If your goal is to evaluate your brand overall, conduct surveys periodically. To find out the best time to carry out the satisfaction survey, test carrying it out at different stages of the purchase process and try to do it in different formats: online, over the phone and even in person using a printed form.
Can every company do it?
The answer is simple, yes. If a business has defined strategies and objectives, the results of the satisfaction survey will be applicable regardless of the segment in question. It is noteworthy that this tool can also be used internally to measure the organizational climate of a company. Check below the main benefits of applying a satisfaction survey.
6 reasons to carry out a satisfaction survey in your business
Creating marketing plans in search of specific results is an integral part of the work of managers and entrepreneurs that requires a lot of emotional and strategic intelligence. You have to understand that not all ideas when put into practice will achieve success. Some will need small adjustments, others will need bigger changes, and at certain times the best attitude will be to give up a plan and look for another viable alternative. However, when we are fully involved with the process, we may not have this perception. The satisfaction survey offers the point of view of those who are not included in the creative and administrative process. This is a very good thing, as it shows mistakes and successes that would not be seen inside a company. This exercise of listening to different opinions and accepting them in a neutral and critical way about your business can bring a series of benefits. Meet the main ones.
Find the problems that need to be solved
One of the main benefits of carrying out a satisfaction survey is to receive relevant and practical information to identify which sectors of your business need adjustments. When problems happen, from the smallest ones like unavailable product pages to the biggest ones like recurring service errors, your business runs the risk of losing customers, resulting in a direct impact on your bottom line. Therefore, finding these failures quickly and resolving them efficiently, before the problems affect more people, is an essential task that must be performed continuously, ensuring the optimization of your company’s income.
Optimize your time and resources
The job of investing time and resources to optimize your company’s operations will become much easier once you identify which points need improvement. With the information contained in the satisfaction survey, it will be possible to prioritize the problems that must be solved, putting those with the greatest impact on your results in front.
Find opportunities
Another great advantage of having points of view coming from outside your company is the opportunity to find new business ideas that you can leverage. After all, one of the people who best understands your product or service and how it is consumed is your customer. Your collaboration during a satisfaction survey can be much more than just an opinion, it can come in the form of a creative idea or the solution of a problem. The opinion of consumers can actively collaborate with updating your company to meet market demands, improving service, finding new public profiles interested in what you have to offer and even creating new products.
Keep your strategy up to date
Maintaining a marketing strategy that doesn’t work, in addition to not bringing results, will cost money. When a satisfaction survey is done correctly and has questions related to the purpose of your planning, the feedback contained in the responses will provide key information that can be used alongside sales and service data to analyze the effectiveness of your strategy. Are the results promising? Look for ways to stick to your plan. Is the income not paying off? Evaluate what are the flaws contained in your strategy, find the best ways to correct them, put them into practice and redo the tests until you guarantee an effective sales process.
Adjust expectations
Expectations play a very important role in customers’ perception of a business. By analyzing what is expected from your brand through the responses, it is possible to identify whether changes are needed in communication and service. Depending on the intensity of the response level, even rebranding could be an option. From the satisfaction survey, it is also possible to identify which customers had problems and get in touch with them directly, understanding the cause of dissatisfaction and offering solutions for these people to close business with your company.
Customer loyalty
According to the recommendations of one of the world’s leading experts, David Skok, the Customer Acquisition Cost of a profitable business should be between 3 to 5 times greater than the customer’s lifetime value, also known as LTV. If the cost of acquiring new customers is higher, investing in the loyalty of those who already buy from you can be a much more profitable strategy. Also, by listening to your customers’ pains and taking action to end the problems that cause them, it strengthens the relationship between them and your business. Upon noticing that suggestions have been transformed rmed in solutions, your audience will naturally perceive that your brand’s concern for offering the best experience is genuine.
What happens to brands that do not use the satisfaction survey?
By not applying a satisfaction test, companies lose the opportunity to identify which were the negative experiences that alienated their customers. Without this information, it will not be possible to plan actions that correct specific errors and prevent new customers from being lost due to the same failure. This can be costly, increasing the cost of acquiring new customers, decreasing the number of loyal customers, increasing operational costs from errors that could be corrected and causing damage to the brand image.
How to apply an efficient satisfaction survey
After understanding the importance and influence that the satisfaction survey has on the results of a business, it’s time to learn how to put it into practice. The processes and aspects that make up a successful survey begin even before the elaboration of its questions. Check out some tips that will help you gather relevant and information-rich responses for your business.
Set a goal
What is your objective with the satisfaction survey? By answering this question, you will have an idea of who the target audience will be, on which channel the survey should be carried out and what the content of your questions will be. Questions may be related to the quality of care, product or service offered, but the possibilities do not stop there. It is possible to acquire opinions about the competition, ideas for your business and even ask about specific issues.
Define your target audience
The satisfaction survey can be carried out with all your consumers, however, after defining a specific objective, you must choose the target audience so that your goals are met efficiently. Is the survey about a product that has a specific consumer profile? Or is it about service in a specific area of the country? Use the data you already have about your audience to create more assertive questions and to ask who really should answer them.
Develop clear and objective questions aligned with your objective
Once you’ve defined your objective and chosen the audience that will respond to your survey, you need to make sure you’re asking the right questions. Define the topics addressed and seek to create objective questions. Try to talk to your team to identify the most common doubts and complaints. After preparing the questionnaire, take tests! It is by testing that you will find out if your questions are easily understood and if the number of questions is too large, making the test difficult and creating chances of withdrawal, or if the number is insufficient, gathering little information about your customers. An important tip is to try to answer questionnaires from competing companies. Thus, it is possible to assess their priorities and understand how a questionnaire is designed.
Choose the appropriate communication channel
A satisfaction survey can be carried out in several ways. Through online forms, filling out a questionnaire after a sale, after closing a call, for example. After defining the target audience in line with your objective, you must choose a channel used by this customer profile, otherwise your survey will reach fewer people and lose effectiveness. There is no exact formula that can help you with this choice. So, analyze your metrics, define the best options and test with different channels until you find a way that is efficient for your business.
Choose an evaluation method
There are several methodologies and models of questionnaires with different purposes. Some are simple and small, with only objective questions, while other tests can be more elaborate, have qualitative questions and their own scoring system, as is the case of the NPS (Net Promoter Score). Next, we will present the main methods that can be used in a satisfaction survey. We recommend that you test different alternatives to find the best option for your business.
Check out the main satisfaction survey models
Net Promoter Score – NPS
The NPS is an easy-to-apply satisfaction survey method that provides both quantitative and qualitative responses. From the question “On a scale of 0 to 10, how much would you recommend (a brand or product) to a friend or colleague?” customers will be divided into 3 categories:
- Promoters, scores from 9 to 10: customers who already like your company , tend to cultivate a relationship with her and are likely to refer her to family, friends and colleagues.
- Neutral, grades of 7 to 8: customers who are not dissatisfied, however, are not loyal to your company.
- Detractors, grades from 0 to 8 6: people dissatisfied with your brand, product or service. There is a great chance that they will stop buying or using your services and that can damage your business image.
- The answer that follows this question is very important. Use the question “Why did you give this grade?” to understand customers’ motivations, opinions and even suggestions. After completing the survey and collecting the responses, a calculation will be made to evaluate the performance of your business using the formula: % of Promoters – % of Detractors. Neutral respondents are not used in the account.
Customer Satisfaction Score – CSAT
The Costumer Satisfaction Score, or “Customer Satisfaction Score”, is a metric to measure consumer expectations and contentment with your brand. Generally, the method uses specific questions such as:
- Did the service meet your expectations?
- How do you rate the service offered?
- Do you Are you happy with our product?
The questions asked using CSAT can have open answers or deterministic answers, which will classify customers into different groups, facilitating the visualization of the generated data.
Customer Effort Score – CES
The Customer Effort Score, or “Consumer Effort Score”, is a satisfaction survey method that measures the effort made by customers when using or buying products in their business.CES is a great method to find solutions that optimize and facilitate the customers’ buying journey.
Likert Scale
The Likert Scale is a way to distribute votes for your service and can be used in conjunction with other methods. Customers will be able to respond to the questions by agreeing or disagreeing with any statement on a scale of 1 to 5. The meanings are as follows:
1 – Very dissatisfied
- 5 – Very satisfied
- Not clearly defining the objective of your market research : The results and success of your search are completely linked to the objective you want to achieve. Ensure that your research will be done only after finding a goal that justifies your application.
- Using inappropriate language: when creating your questions, think about the audience that will answer them. A very formal language may not be the best suited for a younger audience, since slang and jargon can make a portion of your audience not understand the questions.
- Complex or poorly worded questions: ensure that all your questions are neutral and do not lead to a specific answer, otherwise your data will not be accurate.
- Spelling and grammar errors: The only way to guarantee that your survey will not show any errors is to do a thorough proofreading.
- Quiz and Long Questions: Ask only the essentials. Questions and surveys that are too long can make customers stop sharing their opinions.
When calculating the result, add the number of responses between 1 and 2 and then add the number of responses between 4 and 5 to illustrate the negative and positive percentage of customers.
Objective yes or no questions
This is one of the most practical and most applied tests. This satisfaction survey method is simple and uses only objective questions that seek to know whether customers agree or disagree with a statement. An example of its use that can be applied in physical and virtual stores is the question “Would you shop with us again?”
Learn about the most common mistakes made in surveys and learn how to avoid them
Preparing a satisfaction survey is not necessarily a complicated process, but some precautions must be taken to guarantee good results and protect your brand image. Below we list the main errors in surveys and our suggestions to avoid them.
5 Tools to create your satisfaction survey
Once you understand what a satisfaction survey is and how relevant it is to your business results, it’s time to put your new knowledge into practice. We have prepared a list of some tools that can help the process of creating your surveys and optimize the work of analyzing all the information collected through the questionnaires. Check out the options and choose the best platform for your business.
1. SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is one of the most popular survey form tools, in addition to having a website completely in Portuguese. The platform is simple to use: create and share surveys. Something that can be good to ensure that inexperienced users do not get lost in the process of designing surveys, but it limits the customization of its features.
two. Typeform
The solutions that this platform offers are already well established in the market. Typeform offers all the necessary tools to create a complete satisfaction survey. Its functions allow the creation of humanized questionnaires with responsive layouts, features that make respondents’ lives easier and encourage quality responses.
3. Wufoo
The standout feature of using Wufoo is the ability to integrate eye-catching forms directly into your website. The tool has a series of questionnaires and forms ready to be customized and shared with your customers.
4. MindMiners
Creating a satisfaction survey based on the knowledge of professionals can make all the difference when analyzing your data. The Brazilian startup MindMiner has ready-to-use questionnaires that are certified and tested by experts in statistics as its biggest differentiator.
5. Google Forms
Google Forms is an option that could not be left out of our list of tools to create your satisfaction survey. The platform is very popular for being completely free, easy and intuitive to use. Its layout is not very attractive, but on the other hand, the forms are very practical and versatile.
Is it worth hiring a company to carry out your satisfaction survey?
The answer to this question can vary from business to business. To assess whether or not it is worth hiring a company to carry out the satisfaction survey for your business, assess the size of your company, define the objectives that must be achieved and understand the complexity required in the survey. Usually big brands and business groups need detailed data due to the large number of consumers of your products or services. Medium and small businesses can collect valuable data from simpler surveys. So, to decide, reflect on your activities within the company, the time needed to carry them out and look for budgets to decide which is the best option for your career and your business.
Ready to create your satisfaction survey?
We hope that our content has helped you learn everything you need to create efficient surveys that collect relevant results. If you are also looking for a tool that can help increase customer satisfaction on your website, get to know the features of JivoChat, our online chat tool. Through it, it is possible to monitor your website visitors, start conversations with proactive invitations and answer the main questions of potential customers in real time very easily.
