Are your surveys show customers are satisfied, but sales are languishing? Then your surveys are suck. You ask incorrect questions or don’t ask the correct ones (I do not consider those ignorant who don’t ask clients’ opinion at all).

Examples:

• The most frequent error is one-question survey: Dear Client, you bought XYZ. What do you think about this product? (1-terrible 5-perfect) The question is more or less OK (rather ‘better than nothing’) but the point is what you didn’t ask there. The client may be totally satisfied with the product but furious with service/sales team however there’s no way to show that.
• Like previous but vice versa: after chatting with on-line support you show Please let us know how good was support’s answer. No one support member can help if your product is suck or if company’s behavior is silly, whatever he/she says.
• The previous two items could make you think you should ask customers about all of that every time. It’d be good but it makes sense to make the survey as short as possible. But you NEED those answers. What’s another most common error? There’s no option to add something which doesn’t fit in previous questions.
• The survey don’t ask for the customer’s contact and/or permission to contact. Not the most frequent but the most terrible error. If John gives 5 stars to product or support but 1 star to the company you should want to call him immediately!

Keep in mind correct time. You bought XYZ day before yesterday, could you please rate the product? If XYZ is breakfast in your restaurant then it’s too late to ask, he/she forgot already unless it was something terrible. If you sold washing machine then it’s too early. For such long-term products it makes sense to ask after a week or a month then every year (maybe with connection to client’s birthday). You got many birds with the same stone:

• show the client she/he’s important for you
• remember them you’re existing
• got valuable data!

Make it possible to send you an idea/complaint anytime, either your business is off-line or on-line. Too many mobile apps do not receive their stars just because they ask for the rating at the wrong time.

Please remember to track answers, so if today you’ve received “I threw that #$%^3$%# phone away last week” then it doesn’t make much sense to ask about the same phone next year, huh? Instead you may want to express your sorry about bad phone and do something to improve your relationship – asap. Unprocessed answers are wasted money.

If you’re asking for suggestion or opinion make sure it’s easy to proceed with the questionary, don’t barrier it with e.g. ‘registration required’, ‘IE only’. Make sure it works for both desktops and mobile.

Customers are the most valuable asset of any company. But the responders are even more valuablier because (even if they are not satisfied) they agreed to spend THEIR time to show YOUR errors and to make YOUR company better.

And yes, I’d be glad to see your opinion on my articles too, either here or via my LinkedIn profile! Please don’t forget to leave your email data if you’re answering in comments or via contact form. I appreciate it very much!