Frequency of surveys

Goncalo Pereira

Hello,

as part of our focus on customer experience, surveys play a very important role.

One question that always comes up is the frequency of the surveys.

From your experience what would be considered the optimal frequency to survey specific individuals inside a customer organization?

This goal is to target specific individuals who, for example, were part of a delivery project and we want to follow up.

Any insights?

thanks in advance for the excellent support as always.

[Deleted User]

Hi Goncalo,

Super question! I think frequency is absolutely key to ask when talking about surveys. Timing and delivery are also very key when considering the overall survey engagement. In previous companies that I have been at and have had a more robust survey structure frequency was directly correlated to the actual number of interactions that would qualify for that specific touchpoint.

A great example would be after certain interactions we would randomly send a survey to customers to get feedback. Those interactions happened a lot so we were able to really get a good wide data set without overwhelming our customers. If the overall qualifying number is lower I think it should be fine to send to most if not all. Finding the timing is key because you want the interaction to be fresh and at the same time give the customer time to digest it. Lastly, who the survey comes from is important when taking in to account what the customer will be willing to share. Many leaders agree that a followup requesting feedback coming from a person not involved in the interaction is more likely to have deeper insights. I also know some companies contract out for those requests to get the best quality of feedback.

I would love to hear if other contributors to this community would have insights in to this topic. @Kelsey Hunsinger does your CS org track NPS? @Joseph Reifel from a product perspective would you have any insights? I know product is always capturing great customer feedback.

Goncalo Pereira

Hello @Eddie Aguilar ,

Thank you so much for your answer. I agree with your statements. We want to conduct surveys for project deliveries and support, targeting specific individuals.

The tricky part is to find a balance and not overwhelm the users with requests as experience tells me this will result in ignoring future surveys.

But we do want to have the ability to measure the pulse on delivery projects (which typically take between 6 months to 1 year) to be able, based on the feedback, to implement immediate actions and also to understand if he quality of the support we provide is aligned with customer expectations.

This is why i am asking for some guidance from this community of experts and specialists. 😃

Thank you!

Goncalo Pereira

Hello community,

any more updates to add to this question?

Thank you so much.

GailPropson

Hi @Goncalo Pereira ,

I'm late to this conversation but wanted to share some suggestions on how to determine survey frequency.

To avoid "survey fatigue" I recommend preparing the customer for your process and sharing the results.

Let them know exactly when you plan to contact them and how. For example if you have four primary phases of the project, in your project plan showing the four phases, also mention your feedback plan.

Tell them the method you are using, sending an email or they will be called by a 3rd party provider.

Go to the next step and explain why you will be capturing the feedback and how you plan to use it. Show them the closed loop process you use to follow up on critical issues that arise. If possible, give examples of how customer feedback has improved the process.

Informing your customers about your process will help with fatigue and can improve response rates.

The key is if you're going to ask your customer to take time from their day to provide feedback, make it worth their time and share.

Great question!

I'm open to chat if you want.

Gail

Goncalo Pereira

Hi @GailPropson ,

you are not late, this is an open conversation and especially if you are providing such great advice. :)

I really liked your point of view, which is to have an open and transparent approach with the customer related to the surveys, i am sure this will increase the response rate and avoid the fatigue you so well mentioned.

Great stuff!

Thanks a lot

Goncalo

GailPropson

Thanks @GoncaloPereira!

I'm curious, how have you been conducting your customer surveys; method, frequency and metrics measured?

Gail

Kevin Bowers

Hi @GailPropson

We will hold a webinar that will touch on this topic in 2 weeks. Please see the link below.

https://www.tsia.com/webinars/unlocking-revenue-growth-with-customer-loyalty-in-field-services

While will focus on Field Service benchmark data, we will also cover best practices (method, frequency and metrics measured) in customer satisfaction surveys, identification of operational key drivers, and incenting customer satisfaction.

Goncalo Pereira

Hello @GailPropson ,

apologies for the late response, busy days. 😃

We are conducting surveys for support in 2 flavours so to speak:

Surveys during project phase

Surveys related to support cases

We measure CSAT & NPS in both cases. The goal is to provide with our sales force data they can leverage for their commercial ngotiations.

We also want to use the surveys answers on support contract renewals. I do believe this type of data can demonstrate to procurement teams for example that our support is good value for money.

Of course we face challenges like low response rates, answers made in "the heat of the moment" that do not reflect reality, but we are working on it.

This is why i asked this great forum to understand what we can do better, how we can improve as in my humble opinion, customer must be the centre of everything we do (and more and more they demand it to be like this 😉).

Hope i answered your question.

Thanks for all your insights.

Goncalo

Goncalo Pereira

Hi @KevinBowers

thank you so much for sharing, i already enrolled and i already forwarded it to some colleagues as i am sure they are interested.

Cheers,

Goncalo

GailPropson

Hi @GoncaloPereira ,

Now I need to apologize for my delay in responding to you, busy week for me. Thank you for sharing the details of your current program. You did answer my question.

Low response rates can be frustrating, especially when you're relying on the feedback to understand how you are doing and where to improve.

Have you ever considered adding other methods to capture feedback? For example phone interviews?

You can increase your response rates by adding phone interviewing to your feedback process.

Something to consider.

Gail

P.S. @KevinBowers Thanks for sharing the link to this week's webinar on the customer loyalty! I have a conflict but signed up just in case my schedule changes.

Kevin Bowers

@GailPropson

You're welcome. It was good timing for the topic. The great thing about TSIA webinars is 24 hours after the live event you can view it on-demand as well as download the slide deck.