The 3 Biggest Reasons Customer Satisfaction Surveys Fail and How to Fix Them (Part 2)

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In this continuing series, we examine the second most common reason surveys fail. You can find part 1 of the Customer Satisfaction Survey series here.  For your benefit, we have added the intro from the first blog below.  

Customer satisfaction surveys don’t always work.  Perhaps you have firsthand experience with a survey failing and looking back, still don’t know why.  But rest assured, you are not alone.  We run into many people that have done surveys before and been unsatisfied with their results.  They feel like they did all of the right things.  Many have:

  • Spent a ton of time crafting specific questions based on what they wanted to know about their clients/prospects.
    • They may have searched Google to find ‘expert’ survey questions.
    • They may have used a research firm or consultant to help them create their questions.
  • Used cutting edge technology to create and send the survey.

But something was obviously missing because after the survey results came back, they were left feeling like all of their effort/time/resources were wasted.  What happened?

In our experience, there are 3 major reasons surveys fail.  Typically the sender:

  • Didn’t have a significant number of people respond.
  • Had people respond but didn’t get the information they hoped for.
  • Received great data but didn’t know how to create actionable steps from it.

With each of these issues, there are many variables that could have caused their survey to fail.  Today, we will pull back the curtain on some of the most common.

Reason 2 – Didn’t Receive Information They Needed

This is typically due to one specific reason – even good marketers struggle to construct questions that will get them the actual info they need.  That’s why some of the most popular key phrases in Google when you search for ‘customer surveys’ are ‘customer survey questions’ and ‘customer survey template’.  This person is actively looking for advice (in the form of a Google search) but doesn’t realize that the mostly generic advice he’ll receive from these results won’t provide questions that are specific and meaningful to his organization.

So how do you get company specific questions?  You could turn to a survey consultant, but her fees are often expensive.  You could also rely on the company that provides your surveys (when needed, we provide this as a complimentary service for our customers).  But our best recommendation is to form an internal panel that provides feedback from stakeholders in each department (marketing, sales, client services, etc.).  Their feedback not only provides you excellent insight into what things the survey should help answer but also helps create buy-in that will allow for actionable steps following the survey.

We will be releasing part 3 of this series during the next week.  Please be sure to follow along.  If you have any questions or would like to learn more about CustomerCount, please contact us today.