Chapter 14

 Survey Says . . .

You keep hearing and reading that success in the marketplace comes from giving your customers what they really want. So, how do you know what your customers really want?

Well, for starters, you could ask them!

Excessive Directive: Exceed Customer Expectations

The cliché in customer service is that you need to exceed customer expectations—then everybody will truly love you. That requires you to wrap your arms around what “great service” means to your customers. To help you, there’s no shortage of free advice:

Unfortunately, much of the common wisdom isn’t as wise as you need it to be.

Well-Researched Busts, Flops, and Duds

Think about this: If market research could tell a business all it really needed to know about what customers truly value, no major, well-funded, sophisticated marketing company would ever stumble in the market. There’d be no product flops by the Big Boys.

But we know they screw up as much—or maybe more often because of their sheer size—as anybody. (PC jr, anyone? How about a McRib or McDLT sandwich? Or a New Coke? Have you used Federal Express Zap Mail recently? Or an Apple Newton? Flown Pan Am or Eastern Airlines lately? How’s your Miata or Fiero?)

Walk through a supermarket today, and about a hundred products won’t be there a year from today. That’s despite a whole bunch of sophisticated research that can prove the world really wants and loves these products. Then next year, in the place of the failed hundred, another new hundred or so products will be introduced with the hope of catching your fancy and repeat purchases.

Likewise, certain opinion surveys can prove to you that no one reads supermarket tabloids, no one watches trash television, and most everyone faithfully patronizes public broadcasting.

No Surveys?

Are we suggesting that you shouldn’t use customer surveys in trying to understand customer needs? No. We think they’re an important part of your information gathering/ market feedback process.

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 Tales from the Real World
Recently, Ron took his Chrysler Town & Country Minivan in for servicing to his dealer, Ramsey Chrysler/Plymouth in Ramsey, NJ. Already a fan of the dealership because of the customer friendly sales staff, Ron was impressed by the testimonial letters hanging from floor to ceiling on the wall in the service waiting area. Speaking with Keith Reiner, the Service Manager, Ron found out that Ramsey Chrysler consistently averaged a customer satisfaction rating of 3.6 out of a possible 4.0 rating.

 

Keith claims that the feedback they get from the surveys and letters acts as a barometer of how well they are doing and what areas they need to improve upon. In Keith Reiner’s words: “The day we stop reading these letters and surveys is the day you will see our rating dip below 3.6. As long as I am here, no letter and/or survey will go unnoticed.” Is it any wonder that Keith Reiner has been happily working at Ramsey Chrysler for 24 years?

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In this chapter, we’re going to give you some valuable pointers on how to use customer surveys effectively. But we want to start off with this important caution: You can’t make critical decisions about what customers want and value based solely on market research—no matter how expensive or apparently sophisticated it is.

Seek and Ye Shall Be Confused

So let’s return to that oft-repeated, sage advice: Ask people what they want. Sounds reasonable. But there’s a catch. Most people often don’t know what they want.

Now, let’s be more specific. Some people know what they want at a minimum: their hot food served hot. Friendly service. A clean, inviting place of business. But they often can’t tell you the things that they’d absolutely love . . . because they genuinely don’t know what they are!

Look at some examples of the most popular consumer products and services:

• Video recorders
• Portable personal stereos
• Minivans
• Home finance software
• Camcorders
• Cable TV movie services
• The Internet
• Microwave ovens
• Automatic Teller Machines
• Cellular phones
• Post-It® Notes
• Voice mail

These products didn’t result from popular demand but rather by risk-taking marketers who offered their customers what they hoped would be pleasing innovations.

Why Good Surveys Can Yield Bad Information

People responding to surveys want to help the person or company asking them such important questions. So they give answers that sound good at the time. Even though they may have no basis in reality whatsoever—at least as far as predicting actual customer behavior in the future.

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 Quote, Unquote
People are unpredictable by nature, and although you can take a nation’s pulse, you can’t be sure that the nation hasn’t just run up a flight of stairs.
—E. B. White

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This is why it’s so terribly difficult to determine, through surveys alone, definitively what service constitutes the kind of service or product innovation that your customers would view as important to them.

Getting at True Customer Value

Trying to divine what customers really want is both art and science. Surveys, focus groups, and other market research tools are simply incapable of providing you with the answer to this important question: What do your customers want?

So how do you get at that slippery treasure? A few ways are as follows:

• Watch your customers. Their actions will tell you more than their words. Observe what they look at—or don’t—when they evaluate your product before a purchase. What goofy things do they do when they use—or try to use—your product. (Wish the guys from the record companies were around to see their customers struggle to open the goofy plastic packaging that some compact discs come in.)
• Monitor customer behaviors that tell you how they really feel about your company and its products: repeat purchases; whether the value of customer purchases is getting larger or smaller; the frequency of customer purchases (getting more or less often?); the amount of referred business your customers send your way.
• Collect information from your customers at every opportunity. Listen closely to what they tell you when they call or stop by with questions or problems. (See Chapter 13 and the section, “The Magic’s in the Database,” later in this chapter.)
• And yes, talk to your customers. One on one. At the time when they’re actually using your product or service. Ask them to be blunt in their evaluation and criticism. Ask them pointed questions about why they bought what they did. Or didn’t buy what they didn’t.
• Ask them what they really like about their favorite businesses to buy from, even if it’s totally unrelated to your industry. Get a sense of what kind of treatment your customers value from whatever the source. Then figure out how to capture those attributes in the products and services you offer them.
• Get to know your customers as people. The more you know about their lives, the more you have a context for how your products and services fit with the whole of their lives. That’s where you may draw the inspiration for products and services that customers would never think to ask you for, but you can create for them because you understand them perhaps better than they do themselves. The more you know about your customers, the better equipped you’ll be to modify how you do business to increase the performance and acceptance of your products and services.

The bottom line: serve your customers well by understanding them deeply. Use surveys and other formal tools of market research, but don’t simply defer to them. They give you some of the information you need, but not all. They’re no substitute for what Don calls “breathing customer air”—being where your customers are, really using and evaluating your products and services.

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 Tales from the Real World
After keynoting a reseller conference for a computer manufacturer, Ron was retained to develop and administer a survey of its resellers to identify ways of improving the company’s relationships with them.

 

The surveys indicated that an expensive incentive trip the manufacturer offered for top performers wasn’t really viewed as being valuable by the resellers. They preferred to see that money invested in product and service innovations.

 

Ron, along with executives from his client, presented the findings to the Reseller Advisory Council (a group comprised of resellers who met regularly with the manufacturer to discuss issues at hand). The council agreed with the findings and it was their recommendation to scrap the trip.

 

This is a clear example of how a survey can lead to identification of trends to be discussed and validated by appropriate parties. This mix of surveys and validation makes a tremendous tool for getting a good sense of how your customers really feel about certain issues.

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Let’s Talk Surveys

Survey cards are everywhere! They must be mating and reproducing.

You can’t eat at a restaurant, shop in a clothing store, or visit a dry-cleaner, without seeing one of those “Tell Us How We’re Doing” survey cards.

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 Tales from the Real World
While donating blood recently, Don came across a customer satisfaction survey card sandwiched in between the pretzels and donuts. It said:

 

“The Blood Services staff work very hard to make donating blood a pleasant experience. One of the best ways we can continue to improve is to listen to those in the best position to know how well we do: our donors. Please answer the questions inside. Your opinions will be given careful consideration.”

 

After recommending that blood be drawn without needles, knives, or other invasive instruments, your slightly blood-deprived, possibly light-headed coauthor further recommended ample helpings of lobster thermidor and filet mignon to replenish vital nutrients lost in the bloodletting. As a special bonus, he gave a little free sample of his management consulting expertise, recommending that the Red Cross launch a multimedia advertising campaign repositioning blood donations as a chic, with-it way to “lose weight—one pint at a time!”

 

And you wonder why you can’t rely on customer surveys.

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Keep in mind that customers who choose to complete surveys may have very different opinions than those customers who do not. Be very careful in making sweeping changes based on survey forms customers pick-up and choose to complete. Now, if nine out of ten tell you about the same problem, look into it!

What Surveys Can Tell You

Competently designed surveys can usually give you a good indication of when customers love or hate something. But everything in between isn’t really very conclusive.

What’s the difference between Somewhat Satisfied and Somewhat Dissatisfied? Partly sunny or partly cloudy? Would you throw out a policy because it leaves many of your customers feeling Somewhat Dissatisfied with it? Would you promote a feature that many of your customers described as leaving them Somewhat Satisfied?

As Ron discussed in Chapter 8, you must clarify the words your customers use. One customer’s definition of what satisfied means could be vastly different than the definition applied to the same word by another customer. Therefore, we urge you to not only give choices, but to attach clear definitions describing each choice. For example: Satisfied = you liked the product or service and will order again from [Your Company] the next time the need arises.

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 Watch It!
Would you be surprised to learn that many customers who say they are Satisfied with their purchase from your company don’t think twice about doing business with one of your competitors?

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To make your surveys more reflective of how customers truly feel about your product, use scales with emotional words. “Love It” is more intense and probably more accurate than “Very Satisfied.” Likewise, “Hate It” registers at a gut level more than “Quite Dissatisfied.” In the middle range, something like “It Was Just Okay” is probably more real a sentiment to your customers than “Somewhat Satisfied.”

What You Can Learn

What you find out in surveys depends on what you ask customers about. The following are many possible areas you could try to assess in satisfaction surveys. These are specific attributes you could assess in a satisfaction/expectations survey.

Sales Representative:

• Knowledge of customer’s business
• Knowledge of [Your Company’s] products
• Accessibility
• Courtesy
• Helpfulness
• Responsiveness
• Promises kept

Product:

• Functionality (specific product or service attributes)
• Reliability
• Performs as promised
• Instructions thorough
• Instructions clear
• Ease of use
• Appearance

Delivery:

• When promised
• Product arrived intact
• Order accurate, shipment complete

Service Staff:

• Accessibility
• Knowledgeable
• Courtesy
• Helpfulness
• Responsiveness
• Resolution of inquiry or problem
• Promises kept

Billing:

• Payment terms
• Clarity
• Accuracy
• Timely

Technical Support:

• Knowledge of customer’s business
• Knowledge of [Your Company’s] products
• Accessibility
• Courtesy
• Helpfulness
• Responsiveness
• Resolution of inquiry or problem
• Promises kept
• Timely response
• Clarity and ease of instructions

Promotional Communication:

• Information value
• Clarity

Competitive Standing:

• On all other attributes listed
• Price/value
• Quality
• Guarantees
• Distribution channels
• Reputation

Just Do Something

Here are some important questions to ask yourself about surveys before subjecting your customers to them:

• What do I expect to learn from the survey?

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   Watch It!
  Survey research is a numbers game. A few surveys may be worse than no surveys, for they could lead you to false conclusions drawn from a group of customers too small to reflect what the majority of your customers think. Again, get expert assistance to increase the likelihood that your surveys reflect reality and not a distortion of it.

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• What do I need to find out to be more competitive?
• What would surprise me?
• What would be signs of progress?
• What would be signs of trouble?
• What will I do based on the information I receive?

The last question above is vital. Surveys and other research should be undertaken only if you’re prepared to act on the information. Gathering a shelf full of “interesting” customer feedback is a waste of your money and your customer’s time.

Gather information to act on it. Otherwise, don’t bother.

So What’s Your Interpretation?

Many people like the “middle of the road.” They may feel neither particularly positive nor negative about something. Still, you need to assess whether your product or service struck them as more positive or negative. One way to do this is to offer only an even-numbered set of choices for a rating scale. If you have only four categories instead of five, for example, there’s no middle ground. People have to declare themselves as being either on one side of the line or the other.

If you’re using one survey form to cover a variety of customer experiences (which we would recommend against), you may need a check-box on the survey that says “Did Not Experience.” This is better than Not Applicable (or NA—which many people may not understand at all). Not Applicable may seem like the neutral choice to some people. And you want them to indicate whether they had a positive or negative experience.

There is no one “right way” to do surveys that all the experts would agree is best. People with Ph.D.s in the research field often seriously disagree about methods and conclusions. But there are many mistakes the unknowing could innocently make. If you plan to make business-altering decisions based on your surveys and other customer research—and that is why you should do research in the first place—get some expert assistance.

Survey methods are part of the formula; analyzing the pounds of resulting data is the other. How you cut the data can significantly color the conclusions you might draw from a dizzying stack of numbers.

Bad information—or misinformed interpretations—can yield bad, even disastrous, conclusions. Don’t do a good thing badly.

Power Questions

It’s one thing to ask customers how satisfied they were with their recent experience with your company. It’s quite another to really put those feelings to the test.

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 Watch It!
Just because you have information from a survey about what customers say they want, it doesn’t mean you will automatically succeed by meeting those wants. Before putting both feet in the water, come up with a prototype and test your target-customer reactions to it. Use focus groups and test markets before proceeding to a grand scale introduction. See if your customers truly value your solutions.

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Here are some tough questions that get to the heart of the matter. Based on your experience with [Your Company]:

• How strongly would you consider buying from it again? [Scale]
• Would you enthusiastically recommend to a close friend or associate that they do business with [Your Company]?
• To how many people in the past year have you recommended [Your Company]?
• If you could make your recent purchase choice over again, would you still buy from [Your Company]?

Or how about:

• Based on your experience with all companies—across all industries—how would you rate the service you received from [Your Company]?

   The absolute best

   As good as any you’ve had

   About what you normally receive

   Less than what you’ve come to expect Disappointing

   Truly awful

Revealing Open-Ended Questions

Sometimes customers can provide you with the best insights when they get beyond the confines of your prepared questions and can answer in their own words.

Here are some questions to spur revelations:

• What’s the one thing about [Your Company] you’d change if you could?
• What’s the single most important reason you choose to buy from [Your Company] rather than its competitors?
• In the past year, do you think [Your Company] has been gaining ground or losing ground?
• What’s something that [Your Company] could do to improve your experience with it?

Over-Surveyed?

The phone company calls to survey you about service. Credit card companies call to survey you about service. Your auto repair shop calls to survey you. The post office wants you to complete its survey.

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 Quote, Unquote
A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.
—Marshall McLuhan

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Everybody, it seems, has jumped on the satisfaction survey bandwagon (where every tenth or hundredth or thousandth customer transaction is automatically selected for a survey). So why does service seem so bad so much of the time? That’s another discussion. The point here is that your customers may have had it up to their eyebrows with satisfaction surveys. You might find response rates to mail surveys declining, or experience more resistance to your phone surveys as survey-weary customers begin to lose interest or resent the intrusion on their time.

What to do? Try fewer surveys. More selective surveys. If you deal with customers face-to-face, ask them for four minutes of their time to help your “improvement efforts.” And then stay within the four minute time frame unless the customer wants to give you more time. Make sure that whatever you say, you give your customers a good reason for why they should take the time to fill out the survey. How will it benefit them in the future?

If you do phone surveys, hire people with a pleasant, understandable phone presentation. Sorry to labor you with the obvious; too many companies obviously overlook the obvious.

If you have the opportunity, try to use one or more of the following to encourage people to take their valuable time to answer your questions.

• Offer to make a donation to a charity of your survey respondent’s choice.
• Offer to share survey results. (This may be of particular interest to industrial customers where there is—or you’d like to create—a feeling of partnership between vendor and customer.)
• Have members of your customer service or sales staff ask their customers to complete the surveys, or have them do the actual interviews (stress with them the vital importance of absolute candor and accurate, uncolored recording of customer responses).
• Offer a variety of methods to provide responses such as e-mail, paper, phone interview, and so on.

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 Word to the Wise
A customer database is a system that records the sales and transaction history for each of your customers. In addition, it could include extensive personal information about individual customers. A customer database can be the lifeblood of your business. The information stored in it can give you ideas about what your customers are looking for, how to serve them, and how to market to them. The value of the database deteriorates if it is not kept up to date. For information to be valuable, it must be current and accessible.

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The Magic’s in the Database

A potent way to understand what your customers want, and what they value, is to capture information about what they’ve been buying from you, and how much they’ve been spending with you already. That makes it a lot easier to determine what they might want from you in the future.

Even though we don’t know the specifics of your business, we’re willing to bet that not all your customers buy the same things from you or spend the same amount of money with your company. Do you know the range of spending, the average per customer, and the spending total for every one of your customers? For this year, for last year, and the year before?

You should. And you can do this with a customer database that keeps track of all the purchases and other transactions made by each of your customers.

Your database, depending on the size and complexity of your business, could take a variety of shapes. A local restaurant might keep an index card for each of its patrons, recording the dates, days of the week, and time of day for each visit, along with what the patron ordered. The card could have the customer’s name, address, and telephone number. Imagine eating at a restaurant you occasionally visit and having the food server ask you if you’d once again like to have the raw fish with peanut butter sauce that you so enjoyed on one of your last visits.

At large companies with huge, complex computer systems, a customer database might draw on many different sources of information from the sales department, the credit department, customer service, order processing, shipping, market research, and so on. People from each department that has some interaction with your clients can enter information about them into the central database. Then, anyone interacting with a given customer can see what experiences others have had with the customer, and in turn, record new insights about preferences and desires.

Having access to centralized, up-to-date information helps you to both understand your customers better and to serve them in that special way that is most relevant to them. A good system will help you get information beyond routine transactions (sales, billing, credit, and so on) entered in it. We mean data that might be useful to a design team, to the market research folks, to technical troubleshooters, and so on.

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 Tales from the Real World
In today’s world of wanting things fast, people don’t want to have to call several different people to get answers regarding their accounts. Henkel Corporation, a chemical company, realizes this. They’re introducing a new system that will enable their customers to truly experience a one call event for all their questions—making one call to place the order, check delivery, clear credit, and handle any other requests. This can only happen if you have an interactive database that links all of this information together from the major operating arms of the corporation.

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The key is to capture as much information about your customer as you reasonably can so that you can complete a picture of who’s buying from you, and what they want, need, and desire. This enables you to get a sense of what your customers really value so you can anticipate their needs to serve them better than they expected. And, in the process, get ahead of all those competitors who would be happy to take your customers’ money.

Sample Customer Satisfaction Survey

The following is a sample customer satisfaction survey. This is not the ultimate survey.

Read it to stimulate your thinking about the questions you might ask your customers.

If you used this survey directly out of the book, you’d likely get some insights into your customers. For more potent information, we suggest you work with a market research professional to develop a survey customized to your business.