Customer Satisfaction Survey Template

What is a customer satisfaction survey?

A customer satisfaction survey is a form of a questionnaire used to indicate how satisfied customers are with a certain product, service, or even company. They are vital to the customer experience, and can be both very simple and very complex. They can also take place at different points of a customer’s experience with a business. The ultimate aim of such a survey is, of course, to obtain quantitative and/or qualitative data about the customer experience and to use those to improve the offerings of a company.

Why are customer satisfaction surveys important for your business?

When implemented correctly, customer satisfaction surveys can bring a multitude of benefits to a business.

Below you will find just some of the most common benefits of implementing a customer satisfaction survey.

1. Identify pain points and opportunities

Customer satisfaction surveys are a great way to identify pain points and opportunities that your business may have.

When a customer expresses dissatisfaction with something, it gives you a clue as to what may be wrong with your offerings and what you should attempt to improve on.

Likewise, when a customer is satisfied with your offerings, it can help you learn what you are doing right, and what you should continue to do.

2. Improve offerings

Customer feedback, when applied correctly, can help you improve existing products/services or develop new ones. Having an intimate knowledge of what your customers want can help you develop offerings that are much more desirable than anything on the market, which provides a fantastic competitive advantage.

3. Increase loyalty and retention

When customers are satisfied with your offerings and the company as a whole, they are much more likely to continue using your products/services and spread the word about your business. This, in turn, helps to increase sales and profits for your business.

4. Customer satisfaction increases sales and profits

As mentioned above, satisfied customers tend to spread the word about a company. This can drastically increase sales, especially when such customers become brand advocates. It is much more effective to retain a customer than to gain a new one, so increasing the lifetime value of your customers is an absolute must if you want to grow your business.

5. Empower decision-making

Having data-driven information at your disposal can empower all sorts of decision-making at a company, and is essential if you want to be able to make the right choices for your business. Such decisions may concern almost any aspect of a business, ranging from what to advertise to how to run operations.

Important metrics measured with customer satisfaction surveys

Customer satisfaction surveys can ask just about anything, depending on what it is you want to learn. However, there are a few important standard metrics that are used by many companies to measure customer satisfaction.

1. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS scores are calculated by asking customers how likely they are to recommend the company, product, or service to someone else. The question is often phrased in the following way: “On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend [Company/Product] to a friend or colleague?” Customers respond according to their answer, and are then divided into three categories, as you can see below.

• Promoters: Promoters are customers who responded with a 9 or 10. They are delighted customers who are likely to keep buying from the company and recommend it to others.

• Passives: Passives are customers who responded with a 7 or 8. They are generally satisfied, but can be swayed to buy from competitors if they have a bad experience.

• Detractors: Detractors are customers who responded with a 0-6. They are unhappy customers who are likely to spread negative word-of-mouth about the company, damaging its reputation.

As you can most likely tell, the NPS score is calculated based on a percentage of promoters minus detractors.

2. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

CSAT scores are a good way to measure customer satisfaction with a specific interaction, product, or service. CSAT scores typically ask a question similar to the one below: “How satisfied are you with [Product/Service]?” with a scale that ranges from 1 (very unsatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied) or simply 1 (unsatisfied) to 3 (satisfied).

3. Customer Effort Score (CES)

CES scores are used to measure how easy or difficult it was for the customer to perform a task. An example of the question would be: “How easy was it to handle your request?” with a scale that ranges from 1 (very easy) to 7 (very difficult).

How to design and implement customer satisfaction surveys

Like pretty much any tool, you need to use the customer satisfaction survey correctly in order to obtain usable data that you can apply towards improving your business.

Below you will find some of the most important considerations when designing and implementing a customer satisfaction survey that will help you obtain quality data and get the results you desire.

1. Setting clear goals

Before you start designing a survey, you need to decide what it is that you want to accomplish. Depending on what you want to learn, different types of surveys will be utilized.

2. Where and when to send the survey

Depending on what and when the survey is about, you will have to choose how and when to distribute it. Some of the most common survey mediums are the following:

• Email: This is great when you want to send a survey to someone who has interacted with your company already.

• In-app or In-website: Great for obtaining customer feedback about a specific aspect of your website or application.

• SMS: Great for quick surveys with customers, again, that have already engaged with your company.

• After an interaction: Surveys that are sent directly after an interaction, whether that be a call or a delivery.

Surveys should always be kept short and easy to read and complete. The shorter the survey, the higher the response rate will be.

3. Designing the survey questions

As mentioned above, keep the questions short and easy to understand. Make sure there are no ambiguous phrases and questions that ask two things at once. Additionally, make sure to keep a mix of question types for quantitative and qualitative data and include open-ended questions for qualitative data.

4. Timing

Timing is crucial when it comes to sending out surveys. Depending on the type of survey it is, you may want to send it out right after an interaction or right after purchase. Some surveys, particularly non-transactional surveys, can be sent every quarter or every year.

5. Analyzing the survey and responding to customers

Although collecting the data is a huge part of this process, it is just as important to analyze the data and respond to the customers accordingly. Make sure to close the loop with the customers by letting them know what changes you are making as a result of their feedback. This will help to increase satisfaction even further and encourage customers to continue giving their valuable feedback.

Best practices for conducting customer satisfaction surveys

- Keep everything short and focused

Try to keep the survey short and to the point. Make sure to respect your customers’ time.

- Offer some sort of incentive (optional)

Although not all companies do this, some companies offer incentives for survey completion, like a small discount on the next purchase.

- Anonymous/confidential feedback

Make sure to keep the identity of the respondents confidential if that is what they want. This will encourage more honest feedback that will benefit you even more.

- Personalization

Where applicable, try to personalize the survey, including addressing the customer by name, to let the recipient know that the survey is important to you and that you value their feedback.

- Keep the survey questions updated

As circumstances change and time goes by, make sure to keep your survey questions updated.

Wrap-up

Customer satisfaction surveys are essential to any business that wishes to grow and prosper while putting its customers first. By being able to listen to their customers and learn what they think, companies can build much better relationships with them and develop better products and services. Now you know all about the ultimate guide to customer satisfaction surveys.