Many companies don’t really understand that their customers aren’t happy until the Going Out of Business Sale is underway. This doesn’t have to be your story. With a well-designed and smartly-executed customer satisfaction survey, your business can capitalize on what it’s doing right and stop what it’s doing wrong for happy, repeat business for years to come.

Ask the Right Questions

Ask open-ended questions that invite the customer to give their real, open, honest opinion. Offering a list of A, B, C, D doesn’t allow your customers to tell you what they know that you don’t. For example, if your customers’ biggest concern is the packaging, and you only ask them if their greatest concern is your price, quality, or availability, you’re missing out on the most critical issue your customer survey can offer. Don’t tie the hands of your call center services to get useful information by asking closed questions on the survey.

Ask the Right Customers

When possible, it’s best to get a wide variety of customers’ opinions, including those who love doing business with you all the time, occasionally do business with you, or hate doing business with you. Get the widest range of customer opinions possible, so you can get an accurate and complete picture of what your customers experience when they buy your product or service.

Ask at the Right Time

When you contract with your call center, make sure that the outbound calls will go out when people are most likely to be able to answer and complete the survey. If you’re calling homes, choose hours after work but before bed time. To contact business customers, select a time during the day when fewer people are at lunch, and days of the week people are most likely to away on vacation, such as Mondays and Fridays.

When the results are in, don’t ignore what your customers have to say! Take action on their issues, so they will remain customers in the future, and hopefully tell their family and friends!