I had the opportunity to travel with my family for spring break last week. Trekking through several airports, there are many opportunities to witness customer service in action: airline employees, various vendors, etc. I am always looking for inspiration for my musings, and sometimes inspiration comes from the most interesting places. And sure enough, I found something. You have probably seen a kiosk like this before in airports, malls, gyms, or other locations:
This happened to be stationed outside of a restroom in the Seattle-Tacoma airport. I am happy to report this particular restroom was very clean; I assume the "excellent" smiley face on the far-left button had fallen off from repeated use ... but I do wonder how much value they place on the data, given I saw a boy randomly pushing buttons on it. That said, it did remind me of the importance of collecting customer feedback through surveys, and how easily they can be presented to get customer input.
In The Moment
When is the best time to survey customers about the service they have received? Before you answer, consider how, after visiting a popular coffee shop, you receive a survey from their corporate office - a day or two after the fact - asking how the service was, the correctness of the order, and if you want to call out any particular crew member for their excellent service? Sometimes when I receive that survey I can't remember that I even had a coffee that day, let alone what type. And who served me?
Considering that, it's pretty clear customers will have the best impression of the service immediately after it occurred. You will get their most honest and accurate impression in the moment. If you ask them later, you run the risk of them not remembering precisely what occurred. Additionally, there might be other factors in the time since you served them that might sway their opinion.
Keep It Simple
The restroom example I provided above is great means of collecting feedback for a couple of reasons: first, it's a single question. Also, the use of happy and sad faces helps avoids issues with language barriers. My range of available responses is fairly limited, too.
One pet peeve of mine, however, is too many rating choices in a survey. Presenting customers with too many choices makes discerning if your team is providing good or great service a challenge, so I recommend keeping options to a minimum. Another suggestion is to provide them with an upfront definition on what construes "good" vs. "great" when they are answering questions to strive for greater consistency.
I also prefer to NOT provide a neutral or "middle of the road" option? Why? I want the customer to commit to the service being on one side of the spectrum or the other.
Bonus: tell the customer upfront how long the survey will take. This also gives you an opportunity to reevaluate how many questions you are asking. Any survey that will take beyond a minute or two means your drop-off and non-response rates are going to rise. Wouldn't you prefer to get a few responses on the most critical aspects of your service from as many people as possible?
Anonymous or Identified?
Should you ask customers to identify themselves or not when asking for feedback? They may be reluctant to if they think there might be consequences. Knowing who they are, however, makes it possible to respond and even rectify a poor experience. I suggest giving them the option to self-identify. Put the decision in their hands.
Besides correcting a poor service experience, knowing the customer has additional benefits. If you strive for ongoing relationships with customers - your products or services are not just one-time purchases - baselining the customer's sentiment allows you to track and measure that predilection over time. It also helps service agents down-the-road get an idea of what that current sentiment might be, and adjust their style as appropriate to accommodate.
Your Methods
Surveying is a great way to get feedback on your service delivery. It creates a great way to establish metrics for different aspects of your service you can measure and improve upon. You can collect various viewpoints of your service delivery both in aggregate as well as with individual customers. Keeping it simple with fewer questions and limited response ranges encourage greater participation.
How are you measuring your customer's satisfaction? What techniques do you use that provide the best response rates?
