Tips for Improving Customer Satisfaction Measurement

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Measuring and improving customer satisfaction is one of the new additions to the ISO 9001:2000 standards. The self-administered survey is commonly used to assess customer satisfaction. Some tips that would be helpful for in performing this type of work are:

Use follow-up calls to improve the response rates
The normal response rate for a mail-in survey is between 20% and 60% according to the ESOMAR Handbook section on Customer Satisfaction Research.

Carefully qualify survey recipients
Customer satisfaction surveys should be sent to customers, and not the sales force, distributors, or other middle-men. In a poorly targeted study, results can be supplied by customers who do not actually buy products, leading to unusual results.

Provide for Comments
Surveys measure the past, but it is within the comments that future trends can be detected. This sounds non-analytical, but surveys are targeted to measuring past performance. The assumption is that this indicates future performance, which as one can see from the stock market, is not an exact science. However, within the text of the comments, future problem areas are highlighted. For example, a company may assume that its customer response time is great, and not include any questions in its survey. The satisfaction numbers may look good, but the scathing comments would indicate otherwise.

Measure loyalty with a projective technique
Always try to measure loyalty not be asking "Will you buy our product" but "Would you recommend our product to a colleague.". Direct questioning the respondent usually lead to a positive bias because of peer pressure or guilt. Indirect methods permit the respondent to truthfully answer the question while avoiding any fear of surveyor disapproval.