Don't Survey Your Customers!

[ccochran]

Howdy, all:

Tell the truth, how many of you are busy getting ready for your next round of surveys? Here's a new article of mine entitled "Don't Survey Your Customers!" that appears in the Sept 2006 issue of Quality Digest. I would love to hear your thoughts about it.

Talk to you soon,
Craig

[Jennifer Kirley]

Excellent!

Surveys are a big subject but in customer satisfaction they add a lot of risk through lost opportunities. Those who bother to answer may be doing so because they feel so strongly, or altruistic--either way the data isn't necessarily actionable and truly representative.

Thanks for another great article!

[Wes Bucey]

Craig certainly doesn't NEED my affirmation to the premise of this article, but I want to go on record anyway.

I've continually railed against the inefficiency of entrusting the important factor of continually nurturing the customer relationship to an impersonal paper or electronic survey prepared and scored by folks who have no other contact with the customer. Craig has made a logical and compelling presentation to much better effect than I ever have. His conclusion is excellent:

In other words, communicate widely. The final communication about your improvement will be to your customer: "Here's what we've done based on your feedback." These may be the most important words you ever say--and you don't have to use a traditional customer survey to say them.

[Manix]

Excellent article.

About 2% of all our surveys are ever returned! They very rarely lead to meaningful action and I think the most poignant aspect of the article is their value in remedial action at the time of the issue. The issues, unless huge in nature, that are identified by surveys, don't actually come to light until 6-12 months after they have happened!

PS Sorry I don't why this has appeared twice, I corrected the spelling mistake and it appeared again!? No worries, I removed the twin post. /Claes

[Claes Gefvenberg]

Originally Posted by ccochran

I would love to hear your thoughts about it.

happy to oblige:

Good job, Craig You really found a sore spot this time: It is well known that I loathe those surveys, be it customer or supplier surveys. You have also pinpointed the reasons:

• The info is outdated by the time it has been compiled.
• They are usually too long, due to lots of irrelevant questions.
• You often have to guess what the question is really about.
• They do not lead to improvement = Wasted effort.

/Claes

[C Emmons]

Well, I am sure there are several who will disagree with me - but I am an advocate of customer surveys - but I think it depends on how you do them. I dont think a mass mailing and crossing your fingers that customers take the time to fill them out and return them is the way to go. However, we ended up using our webiste to ask specific questions (much like a opinion poll you would see on a newswebsite) - The questions are introduced one at a time - here and there - but in the back ground our system is compiling graphs, results, percentages etc. There are question "groups" used each quarter that follow a specific theme such as service, technical feedback, customer service feedback, etc., These questions are rotated on 1st and 3rd qtr and 2nd and 4th with the same questions rotated back out - then results can be compared. I know there is alot of negative feedback in general regarding customer surveys - but I actually prefer them.

[Jim Wynne]

Excellent piece. The sad fact is that most surveys are designed and compiled by people who don't know what they're doing, and are doing it to satisfy the demand for surveys. In other words, they're a waste of time and money.

[ScottK]

We've already decided not to do them ever again so thank you for some additional ammunition in my argument against surveys when we do our ISO9001 registration audit.