Customer surveys can be extremely useful — or a colossal waste of time.

If you'd prefer the former to the latter, here are some suggestions for planning and administering your surveys:

1. Set survey objectives.
   Is your intent to learn about customer preferences? Their perceptions of your responsiveness? How they view your offerings? Multiple objectives are fine; just be sure to define them before you start, or you risk ending up with a list of questions that are unanswered because they were unasked.



2. Keep the survey brief.
   A survey should be only as long as it must be to collect essential information. A well-designed survey can be completed in less than ten minutes. More than ten minutes, and customers are likely to either dump it or fill it out haphazardly, either of which can lead you to draw unwarranted conclusions from the responses you do manage to collect.



3. Make the survey action-oriented.
   Many of the surveys I've reviewed are filled with what I think of as "so-what" items. For example, "Did you enjoy our restaurant?" or "Rate room service on a 10-point scale." A "no" in response to this first item or a "3" in response to the second tells you there's a problem, but provides no clue as to what it is or what you need to do to resolve it. If, instead, you ask respondents to comment on the friendliness of the staff or the speed of delivery of room service orders, you can use their responses to plan a course of action.



4. Use both open-ended and closed questions.
   Closed questions ask customers to assign ratings or select from a set of fixed responses. People can respond to these items quickly, and responses can be readily tabulated, summarized, graphed, charted, analyzed and reported. Open-ended questions, by contrast, ask customers to respond in their own words. Although their responses take time to review and are subject to interpretation, open-ended questions provide significant insight into the customer perspective — something that's practically impossible to accomplish with closed questions. When my clients ask me to evaluate their survey processes, I often recommend that they include more open-ended questions.



5. Ensure an adequate survey response.
   Let's face it; eagerness is not a word most customers associate with completing a survey. To generate interest, emphasize the importance of the survey in helping you improve your service effectiveness. Explain how quickly the survey can be completed and what it will help you accomplish. Publicizing and promoting your survey can dramatically influence the number of surveys returned and the quality of the responses you'll receive. And aim to keep your survey forms from being too deadly serious. Whimsical cartoons, informal fonts, or witty wording work wonders in generating people's interest in your surveys — a nontrivial matter, given that gaining their attention is a crucial first step in having them fill it out.



6. Tell customers about your survey findings.
   Customers sometimes wonder if you do anything at all with their survey feedback. If you want them to believe that you're really listening to them, inform them of your findings — especially if your survey form asks if they'd like to hear from you and provides a space for their contact information. This is part of the psychology of feedback gathering. In this frantic, crazy world, most people rarely take the time to listen (really listen) to each other. Customers who feel that they've been listened to are likely to return to your hotel or restaurant. People who don't may take their business elsewhere.

About the Author
Website: www.nkarten.com

Naomi Karten has always been fascinated by human behavior. Her background includes a B.A. and M.A. in psychology and extensive corporate experience in technical, customer support and management positions.

Since forming her own business in 1984, she has presented seminars and keynotes to more than 100,000 people internationally. Her services, books and newsletters have helped organizations and groups

• Manage customer expectations,
• Enhance their communications and consulting skills,
• Provide superior customer service, and
• Establish successful service level agreements.

She is the author of several books including:

Communication Gaps and How to Close Them, which provides strategies and guidelines for improved communication in such contexts as building strong relationships, delivering superior service, fostering effective teamwork, and managing change

Managing Expectations: Working With People Who Want More, Better, Faster, Sooner, NOW!, which offers a serious, lighthearted look (yes, both!) at policies and practices for successfully managing expectations in the workplace

How to Establish Service Level Agreements, a handbook based on more than a decade of experience providing SLA consulting and seminars internationally and which is designed to help you avoid the flaws and failures she encounters so often