Christine

Thanks for the long, and very helpful, tip. You’ve definitely given us some things to think about.

Thanks for the interesting post. I’d like to add a couple of my own best practices and common pitfalls based on our experience and feedback from users of Checkbox:

– Most companies are intuitive enough to realize that when they receive negative feedback from a customer, they need to follow up with that respondent to rectify the situation. Where I think a lot of companies fall down, however, is in sharing results and subsequent action plans with their customer base as a whole. While it’s important to respond to customers who give you either really great or really awful feedback, it’s even more important to make sure you are reaching those customers who fall into the middle bucket or those that don’t respond at all. The customers who are “lukewarm” about your products or services are often the ones who are most easily snatched up by competitors. So make sure you send a follow-up communication every time you do a larger scale feedback survey – share the results of your survey and, most importantly, tell them how you plan to do better.

– Another key mistake we see many companies make is putting too much emphasis on customer feedback and not enough emphasis on feedback from non-customers or lost leads. Sure, you want to retain the customers you have, but what about the other 95% who didn’t buy from you. Their feedback, while harder to get, is even more valuable because it often represents a huge amount of untapped revenue. And once you have that feedback, the real work begins – striking a balance between keeping current customers happy and offering features that attract new customers.

– While your list of question ‘must-haves’ is great, I think it’s also important to note that survey administrators should be really careful to avoid questions they already know the answer to or that don’t pertain to their respondents. For instance (assuming the survey is not anonymous), if you already have data in your CRM about how a customer found your company or what they’ve purchased from you, try to avoid asking those questions again. If you can, use a survey software tool that has web services and can integrate with your CRM to avoid duplicate info. Also make use of your survey tool’s conditional logic features to avoid asking questions that don’t pertain to them. For example, if a customer rates your product really poorly, it’s probably best not to ask them for a testimonial. Keeping questions relevant and to a minimum is the best way to increase response rates and data quality.

Happy surveying!