The Real Deal on Customer Service Surveys
As being on the receiving end of these surveys, I am able to give some insight on what some companies are trying to accomplish with these. I strongly believe these surveys are ineffective unless companies really extrapolate them and actually change.
First, why do you receive a survey? Well, to monitor the quality and satisfaction of the support received. Depending on the company, some customers get them, or all of them do after a support interaction. It would be suggested that your input does matter, and that they are reviewed individually (false).
Understanding the scales used on surveys. The scales often used are mainly a bell curve. In customer service if you get feedback from the surveys which entails if it’s less than 80% you will have middle management all up in a fuss. So, thus, if you were very satisfied, you should rate them the highest. Most scales are on a 1-5 scale; and many customers think 4 is acceptable for excellent service; which really is that 80% mark as I was talking about.
Who reads these surveys? Probably no one. They are collated and all the numbers are pushed together and are mainly used to track trends of their service centers. Now, if there is an open-ended question on there; some managers may review them and move on. That is your option to write your little essay on how great or poor your experience was. Now, writing in ALL CAPS and including expletives will just have them keep scrolling down.
So is the customer service business screwed? Somewhat. Managers need to really take the feedback on surveys that were poor. Follow-ups should be a staple in these call centers. Customers are *sometimes* right, and that is certainly proven when you see your numbers drop. These companies need to understand that outsourcing is not the answer. Find that racist? I dare ANY company out there to prove otherwise with these customer service metric scores
The final answer - customer surveys needs to be taken more seriously by companies. I find I have only had CSR conflicts when it was outsourced; and usually on my second or third contact, a domestic CSR has to fix all the outsourcer’s mistakes.
Hi Joe,
I agree with your cynicism relating to customer service surveys. You are right in assuming that most are not read individually and companies that say that are lying.
A large company may send out several thousand surveys a day. Usually, larger scale surveys do not have open ended questions on them, but if they do, chances are a manager will not review all of the responses.
From my experience, managers will often scan the open ended responses looking for trends. For example, if there are a lot of complaints about rude staff members, they will hopefully notice this and try to improve accordingly.
However, most companies that do bother to send out a survey that includes something like a 1 - 5 scale do actually look at the numbers and make changes accordingly based on the feedback received. Not all , but most do.
I agree with you that companies need to take customer service more seriously - it is extremely important.