Customer surveys: define, plan and review actions
Regular, well-planned customer surveys with strong participation and high response rates are of little value if you do not use them to define and plan actions. When planning these actions, you should always consider the primary objective and the results collected. Primary objectives might include increasing revenue, improving customer support or increasing customer satisfaction. The results should therefore be examined closely in relation to the relevant objective.
Analysis
First, analyse the survey, identify important insights from the results and quantify them. With the LamaPoll survey tool, you can do this while the survey is still running. Ideally, you will be able to identify specific problems. Your questions should already allow customers to prioritise these problems. Assess the problems and use them as the basis for planning actions. Each action should address one problem.
Potential actions
You can begin by brainstorming potential actions. You should then assess them in terms of their costs, benefits and expected impact. Take your customers’ priorities into account. There is little benefit in implementing actions that are easy to carry out but address less relevant problems.
Planning actions
Action planning can also be supported by a customer survey or incorporated into a survey that is still running. Ask your customers for ideas and suggestions for improvement. This often produces more reliable actions than internal planning that does not take the customer perspective into account.
Reviewing actions
Actions should always be reviewed for their interaction and potential synergies. One action may solve several problems, or it may solve one problem while creating two new ones. The planning process should result in specific actions:
- Ordered by priority and timescale (short, medium and long term)
- Assigned to responsible individuals
- With metrics for evaluating success
- With a deadline
