I wanted to reflect on something slightly different this week: journalist Simon English’s commentary on polling, which argues that organisations commission more of it than ever and much of it badly.
English is candid about his interest as a pollster. At the Institute, we run surveys, for example, to inform the UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI), and through our Business Benchmarking we help members understand how they perform compared with organisations in their own sector and across different industry sectors, as consumers rarely compare within verticals. We also use them to assess internal performance across departments and teams (our Service Culture Index). Ensuring we understand what matters to customers and asking the key questions is critical, and we spend a lot of time getting it right.
As businesses, we have never held more information and data about the people we serve, whether that comes from direct feedback, stated or inferred preferences, or purchase and usage data. We also have increasingly powerful AI tools, coupled with years of boardroom experience, to help us make sense of it all. Yet, when we uncover an interesting insight, this only becomes useful if it informs timely action and genuine insight.
Quick surveys can look like another convenient and cost-effective way to understand customer satisfaction. However, for the customer, it’s a time commitment and investment – which we generally undertake because we wish to share our views. Many customers are happy to invest this time where they think it will help the business understand something they have done well or need to improve.
This creates an implicit obligation to businesses which, unfortunately, isn’t always met: to respond, make any necessary changes where possible and communicate them clearly.
Start with purpose and design
Before surveying customers, ask a few fundamental questions. Will the results help us improve our product or service offering? Will it tell us anything new that we’re ready to act on? Will we actually do things differently as a result? What additional insight, or indeed foresight, can we hope to get, and what type and method of data collection will we use?
Then there’s the design of the survey: how many questions are needed, how it’s delivered (one method rarely works for everyone) and when we deliver it (single points in the customer journey, like immediately post-transaction, can skew the results, for example).
Getting these things right matters. Our latest UKCSI found that – alongside factors like good value, competitive pricing and quality of product – being easy to deal with has become more important for customers over the last six months in determining which organisation they choose.
And when outcomes are poorly executed or articulated, it can be a reflection of the perceived intent of the survey itself. Anyone who believes that a form won’t receive a response, or won’t change anything, is unlikely to give it much thought – especially if it lands at an inconvenient time, in an inconvenient way.
Ensuring customers feel listened to
For me, the risk lies in what comes next. In an operating environment where organisations are expected to be agile and set the standard, few things corrode goodwill and trust faster than asking for feedback and then ignoring it. Or not asking the most pertinent questions.
Listening to the findings of a survey means more than thanking a customer for taking the time. It’s about translating responses to the teams that can act on them, whether that’s fed into product/service design, the whole customer experience, the back office or corporate functions, or training for a customer-facing employee – and making changes that improve customer satisfaction.
Communication is also an important step, as the thing customers notice most – although it’s also the one most often skipped. Keeping customers in the loop reinforces that they’re being heard.
These factors are what separate the organisations that keep their customers from those that quietly lose them. Understanding our customers better is one of the few things within our control, and one of the surest ways to help us improve the way we serve them. This should be done with the skill and behaviour needed to make them more loyal, connected, and interested in you. So please do think of the four old friends: who, what, when and how!
Related Posts
