The Customer Service Survey
Businesses We Love To Hate, and Simple Surveys Part 2
Tue - July 11, 2006 02:20 PM in
Today's Wall Street Journal is conducting a poll asking which industries have worse service.
As I check back, the "leader" is moving around some, with telephone/cellular service in the lead, airlines and cable TV providers close behind. The increasing overlap in the provision of Net access, cable and phone blurs distinctions somewhat, but still, the results are not particularly surprising as services we come to depend on are more upsetting when not working than services less critical to our daily lives.
Yesterday, Peter expressed some surprise on another WSJ article that listening to what the customer says is news. He is right that the only "news" is that companies are actually acting on feedback based on the simple question of how likely a customer is to recommend the company to another. My problem with this approach is just how little such a simple survey provides on actionable issues to fix. The question provides insight into how the customer feels, but tells us nothing about how the opinion was formed, when it was formed; what specifically happened to cause the opinion to form and where correction is needed.
I'm pleased that customer care is finally being recognized as critical to business success and that testing and surveys are useful tools to understand service quality. Now my concern is the use of mediocre or even misleading methods. It would seem that finding out what customers think is as easy as just asking them. Not so. What you ask, when you ask, who you ask and how you ask will have dramatic impact on the results. And unless the research is well thought out and the company understands the data; little improvement is likely.
Posted by Rick Rappe
Yesterday, Peter expressed some surprise on another WSJ article that listening to what the customer says is news. He is right that the only "news" is that companies are actually acting on feedback based on the simple question of how likely a customer is to recommend the company to another. My problem with this approach is just how little such a simple survey provides on actionable issues to fix. The question provides insight into how the customer feels, but tells us nothing about how the opinion was formed, when it was formed; what specifically happened to cause the opinion to form and where correction is needed.
I'm pleased that customer care is finally being recognized as critical to business success and that testing and surveys are useful tools to understand service quality. Now my concern is the use of mediocre or even misleading methods. It would seem that finding out what customers think is as easy as just asking them. Not so. What you ask, when you ask, who you ask and how you ask will have dramatic impact on the results. And unless the research is well thought out and the company understands the data; little improvement is likely.
Posted by Rick Rappe
Posted at 02:20 PM | | | | |