Measuring Customer Satisfaction in the Contact Center – Part 2

Using the automated survey tool in your help center software will give you quick and accurate feedback after each interaction with your customers. Technology alone does not assure effective post-call surveys. The makeup and delivery of post-call satisfaction surveys can significantly influence their reliability and usability.

Consider these 5 best practices based on the American Customer Satisfaction Index published annually by the University of Michigan:

1. Use a scientific questionnaire design. Asking if the customer found the agent knowledgeable and helpful in the same question will not give meaningful feedback and will confuse the customer who may have found him or her helpful but not knowledgeable about the question. Each question should only address one issue. And each question should be straightforward and clearly stated.
2. Define the goal. Know why you are taking the survey and how you will use it before you devise the questions.
3. Keep it short and to the point. Your customers’ time is valuable. Respect them. And don’t forget to thank them for taking time to answer questions.
4. Measure the right things with the right scale. Don’t give open-ended questions; word questions specifically and give respondents the choices you want to measure. Using a scale that takes advantage of the phone numbers 0-9 is easy for respondents and converts to a 100-point scale for reporting.
5. Coordinate your survey with other departments. IT teams need to buy into and have advanced warning for any survey initiative. Various departments can make use of the survey results, so make them available quickly and let others know how to access them.

Your customers have high expectations of your company whether you realize it or not. Surveys need to be constructed in such a way as to give companies ideas for moving forward and improving the customer experience now and in the future. Think of your customer satisfaction survey as a tool to help you take your contact center to the next level, one tier higher than that of the competition!