'Please stay on the line to answer a short, one-question survey at the end of this call', that’s what I heard just before the agent picked up the phone to help me.

Just a one-question survey? Sounds short enough. Sure, I’ll give them an extra minute of my time. So after the call, I stayed on the line. What came right after the call was the promised simple question. It may be one of the best feedback questions I’ve ever heard. I put it right up there with the NPS (Net Promotor Score) question, which I’ll share later. Here it is:

“The next time you call us, would you want the same person to take care of you? Push 1 for yes and 2 for no.”

That’s it. It’s that simple. In one quick question, the customer gets to grade the support rep that took the call. It sums up if the customer was happy and if the agent did their job.

No, it doesn’t tell you if the problem was resolved or not, but that question could be for another day. I started to think about other one-question surveys that can give you a snapshot of what a customer thinks about a company.

Here are a few questions to get you thinking—and each of these questions can be answered using the keypad of a phone.

• Let’s start with the one that prompted me to write this article: the next time you call us, would you want the same person to take care of you?
• The Net Promoter Score: On a scale of, what’s the likelihood you would recommend us to a friend or colleague?
• Was the question answered or the problem resolved to your satisfaction?
• On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate our customer service?
• On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the quality of our product?

The secret to the success of the survey is the simplicity and speed by which the questions can be answered.

In the perfect survey world, I like to follow up one of these questions with an open-ended question. Obviously, you can’t answer that on a telephone dial pad, but if you email or text, you can follow up a simple question with a, “Why did you give us that score?” kind of question.

I’m often asked by clients how to get more responses from customers who are sent surveys. You now know the secret: simplicity and speed. Just promise that it won’t take a lot of time – a minute or less – and watch how many more surveys your customers take.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken. Shep is a regular contribuor to 4Hoteliers.com.

(Copyright © 2019, Shep Hyken - Reprinted with Permission)