We all know that customer satisfaction is vital for any business to survive and thrive. The best way to know whether your customers are satisfied is to conduct a Customer Satisfaction Survey.

A survey can be a six-monthly or yearly affair to find out:

• What the customers like/dislike about your products/services,
• To get innovative ideas or
• To gauge your competitors.

Hence, it is very important to brainstorm and come up with the perfect questions that can get the customers’ pulse. Follow our tips to make a user-friendly Customer Satisfaction Survey.

• Product Feedback: Find out what you would like to know in terms of their views of your products, the level of customer service they receive and their opinion of your business as well as your competitors.

o How satisfied are you with the product purchase you made?
o How satisfied are you with the service you received?

If some people give a negative feedback to any of the above questions, you may wish to follow up with a question asking why.

• Loyalty Assessment: Even though it’s a customer satisfaction survey, its purpose is to find out more than just whether your customers are satisfied. The next thing, then, is to know whether the satisfied customers will stay loyal and come back to you again.

o Would you like to buy from us again?
o Would you like to recommend our product/service to others?

• Pricing Feedback: Draft questions in such a way that you can find out what the customers think of your pricing strategy. The answers will give an insight whether your products or services are over-priced/under-priced vis-a-vis your competitors.

o Do you feel our prices are competitive?
o Would you like to purchase from somewhere else if a similar product/service is offered at the same price?

• Buying Behavior: You can get some valuable information if you ask the users contextual questions so that you know whether the customers are frequent or seasonal buyers. It helps in formulating marketing strategies, procurement of goods and hiring of staff.

o How often you visit our store?
o How long have you been using our products/services?
o Which are the occasions when you visit us?

• Demographic Assessment: In addition to the above questions, it may be useful to ask some basic demographic questions to know who your customers are and what they do. These questions will ask customers’ age group, gender, occupation and earning bracket to give you a picture of who are the people using your business the most, and what groups of people you may need to target more aggressively through marketing.

A basic thumb of rule is to keep your survey concise and precise. Including too many questions runs the risk of people losing interest halfway through the survey and not completing it!!!

*****************************