Do you know what your customers think about your overall customer experience?
In order to improve the customer experience, you have to have some solid data to work with. If you understand your customers’ needs, wants, and desires, you can then deliver it to them.
This all starts with the survey.
In this article, we look at five important questions for reducing negative shopper experiences. You’ll learn from this survey how to improve the customer service.
First, let’s look at the type of survey you want to use.
The Customer Experience Survey
This is a survey you create to find out what your customers think about your brand, your products/services, and your overall service.
If you want to alleviate negative experiences, you have to first understand how to please your customers. You need to know what is working well and what isn’t.
This includes finding out why they left your website without buying something. You can also learn how they thought their customer support session went. This survey also helps you learn if they liked your products.
Through the customer experience survey, you’ll learn more about your overall systems. This can help you make future customers happy and avoid negative feelings. Now let’s look at some questions for this survey.
#1: The Open-Ended Question
This is a good question to ask because it lets your respondents write in anything they would like to.
They have the perfect opportunity to tell you what they liked and what they wished you’d do differently. You might find they like and dislike things you’ve never thought of.
Because this question is open-ended, your respondents aren’t forced to choose an answer.
Often these types of questions provide you with the best ideas for reducing negative shopper experiences.
Some examples could be:
- How can we improve X product?
- Tell us about your customer service experience.
- How can we make your website experience better?
#2: The Multiple Choice Question
These are perhaps the most popular types of questions you’ll find on a survey.
While they can provide you with specific data, you’ll find they offer a limited number of possible answers, so your survey respondents are stuck picking particular options.
You’ll find that these are an easier data set to analyze then the open-ended question, but they often leave you wondering what else the customer might say.
To alleviate this, you could offer a conditional open-ended question based on the multiple choice answer to get their expanded input on the question.
One bonus about the multiple choice question is they’re easier for respondents to answer, and your response rates will be higher because they require less of your customers.
When using this type of question, do be careful with the number of choices. Keep to no more than five choices to really home in on your data.
#3: The Ratings Scale Question
Like the multiple choice question, this one provides the answers for your respondents.
They choose from a range of numbers on a ratings scale. For example, they may choose from one-five with one being negative and five being positive.
When using these questions, do keep your ratings scales the same so you don’t confuse people.
Consider these types of questions for a ratings scale:
- How happy were you with the speed of shipping?
- How happy were you with your customer support session?
- When using our website, how easy was it to navigate?
#4: The Likert Scale Question
The Likert Scale is a great way to measure how your customers feel about you, how they perceive your business, and what their most likely behaviors will be.
It is based on either a five or seven point scale, and it strictly measures overall customer sentiment.
The smallest number (1) points to one extreme perspective, while the highest number (5 or 7 depending on the scale) points to the opposite extreme. The middle number shows a more moderate perspective.
Using this survey scale covers a wide-range of opinions. It’s always a closed-ended question and is really a satisfaction scale, showing one extreme attitude to another.
Many survey users like the Likert Scale because it’s one of the most reliable ways to measure opinions, perceptions, and behaviors.
You can really tap into some granular feedback on whether your products and services are just good enough, terrible, or excellent.
The scale helps you get a good sense of the varying degrees of opinion. This can really help you understand why some customers are having negative experiences, and how you can remedy the situation.
Here are some examples of questions:
- Overall, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with our company? The answer choices would be: very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied.
- To what extent do you agree with this statement: Your customer experience was easy and satisfactory? The answer choices would be: strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat agree, strongly agree.
The Likert Scale is great when you really want to uncover information about one topic. It helps you learn more about the customer experience. Overall, it’s a great tool for measuring customer sentiment so you can use the data to improve.
#5: The Binary Scale Question
This question gives your respondents only two possible answers. This most often means they’ll answer with a yes or a no.
This is often more specific than a ratings scale question because there is no middle ground. It’s either yes or no.
Some examples include:
- Do you intend to purchase from us again?
- Will you recommend our company to friends and family?
- Did we solve your problem today?
The binary question does lend itself you an additional question based on the conditional yes or no, so you can learn more.
For example, if someone says they won’t recommend you, you can follow up with an open-ended question to find out why.
To Conclude
In today’s digital age where anyone can leave an online review, it’s important that you use surveys for reducing negative shopper experiences.
One bad experience broadcast on the internet can do a lot of damage.
The most important thing you can do before creating your survey is really fine tune what data you want.
Try to keep your surveys to one topic. For example, send one survey to people who recently purchased something and a different survey to people who recently used your customer service.
By really knowing what data you need, you can tailor your survey to your audience, thus increasing your chances of a good response rate and a valid set of data you can act on. (tweet this)
Surveys help you make the best decisions for your business. Are you ready to get started with your free Survey Town trial? Start with your free account today, and you can upgrade at any time.
Image: Mike Petrucci on Unsplash
