The Customer Service Survey
VocaLabs' weblog providing news and commentary on the challenges of providing good customer service.
Survey Administration: Real People or the Computer?
Friday - January 06, 2006 02:34 PM in
One reason that automated survey techniques are popular is that with the large sample sizes need for the results to be statistically significant, human administered surveys can make for an expensive process. But automated tests can lack the empathy only a human can deliver and leave the participant with a less than ideal image of the company sponsoring the study.
VocaLabs typically solves this conflict with a combination of automation for size/accuracy and surrogate test callers to avoid real customer annoyance issues. But sometimes the client needs to know about enduring opinions only a real customer can have.
This is why we've invented a new study technique we call the integrated Q/A survey and given it the name Express Feedback. Lots of companies record customer calls, but this is a cumbersome process and it takes considerable resources to listen to thousands of calls in order to spot problems. And plenty of companies attempt (with varying degrees of success) to do follow up surveys of their customers. Express Feedback is unique in that we have figured out how to put the two strategies together.
In the pilot tests with our first client, we are successfully matching individual call recordings with actual feedback from real callers, and the survey is being conducted on the phone by a trained administrator within one hour of the customer's call. Thus we have the human touch, the speed to ask detailed questions before the caller's memory fades, and one click access to the recording to compare individual caller comments to the recording of the call. Not only that, but in near real time, our client has access to allthe survey results and when the customer asks for a follow up, presumably for an unresolved problem, our server will alert the client of the need for a call back.
Posted by Rick Rappe'
This is why we've invented a new study technique we call the integrated Q/A survey and given it the name Express Feedback. Lots of companies record customer calls, but this is a cumbersome process and it takes considerable resources to listen to thousands of calls in order to spot problems. And plenty of companies attempt (with varying degrees of success) to do follow up surveys of their customers. Express Feedback is unique in that we have figured out how to put the two strategies together.
In the pilot tests with our first client, we are successfully matching individual call recordings with actual feedback from real callers, and the survey is being conducted on the phone by a trained administrator within one hour of the customer's call. Thus we have the human touch, the speed to ask detailed questions before the caller's memory fades, and one click access to the recording to compare individual caller comments to the recording of the call. Not only that, but in near real time, our client has access to allthe survey results and when the customer asks for a follow up, presumably for an unresolved problem, our server will alert the client of the need for a call back.
Posted by Rick Rappe'
Posted at 02:34 PM by | | | |