I have mentioned that the best way to ensure high levels of customer satisfaction among your customers is to know exactly what they expect from you and to ensure that you meet those expectations and, where possible, exceed them. This leads us to the point of finding out what it is that your customers expect from you.
The best way to find out what your customers expectations are is to ask them. I believe that a simple flick-and-tick survey form can give you a lot of information. You want to know how important certain issues are to your customers, and from this you can fully understand their expectations. Your survey should ask your customers to rate the following items from very important to not important.
How important to you are the following areas of our business?
1. Easy parking
2. Trading hours
3. Range of products sold
4. Quality of products sold
5. The price of products sold
6. Over-all level of customer service
7. Friendliness of staff
8. Attention to detail
9. Ability to answer your questions.
10. Fast service
11. Familiar face each time you visit
12. Cleanliness of the business
13. Lay-out of the business
14. After sales service
The more surveys you carry out, the more accurate the information will be. Clearly, you will need to tailor the questions to suit your particular business.
After your customers have completed a survey of this kind, you will develop a very clear picture of what aspects of your business they find important. This information can determine how you run your business and stop you making changes that could jeopardize your customers' satisfaction.
A good question to put at the bottom of the survey is: 'Do you have enough confidence in our business to recommend it to your family and friends?'
When asking customers to fill out a questionnaire of this sort, give them a little privacy and a place to do the paperwork. To ensure that it is confidential, have a box for responses (like a voting box) that they can slip the completed form into without having it to hand it to a member of staff, as this can make some people feel uncomfortable. I also believe that it's a nice touch to give customers a small gift, such as a chocolate, as a way of thanking them for taking the time to fill in the form.
Customer expectations surveys can also be conducted on a website. I have found that fewer responses are obtained in this way than if you actually give someone a form while they are at your business premises. To increase the response rate, you could offer a gift or an incentive of some kind, but you then run the risk of people not being honest in their responses to the survey as they may feel that any criticism of the business will jeopardize their chances of receiving a gift.
The responses will identify exactly what your customers feel is important to them. Now that you know their expectations, you can do your utmost to ensure that you meet them.
The best way to find out what your customers expectations are is to ask them. I believe that a simple flick-and-tick survey form can give you a lot of information. You want to know how important certain issues are to your customers, and from this you can fully understand their expectations. Your survey should ask your customers to rate the following items from very important to not important.
How important to you are the following areas of our business?
1. Easy parking
2. Trading hours
3. Range of products sold
4. Quality of products sold
5. The price of products sold
6. Over-all level of customer service
7. Friendliness of staff
8. Attention to detail
9. Ability to answer your questions.
10. Fast service
11. Familiar face each time you visit
12. Cleanliness of the business
13. Lay-out of the business
14. After sales service
The more surveys you carry out, the more accurate the information will be. Clearly, you will need to tailor the questions to suit your particular business.
After your customers have completed a survey of this kind, you will develop a very clear picture of what aspects of your business they find important. This information can determine how you run your business and stop you making changes that could jeopardize your customers' satisfaction.
A good question to put at the bottom of the survey is: 'Do you have enough confidence in our business to recommend it to your family and friends?'
When asking customers to fill out a questionnaire of this sort, give them a little privacy and a place to do the paperwork. To ensure that it is confidential, have a box for responses (like a voting box) that they can slip the completed form into without having it to hand it to a member of staff, as this can make some people feel uncomfortable. I also believe that it's a nice touch to give customers a small gift, such as a chocolate, as a way of thanking them for taking the time to fill in the form.
Customer expectations surveys can also be conducted on a website. I have found that fewer responses are obtained in this way than if you actually give someone a form while they are at your business premises. To increase the response rate, you could offer a gift or an incentive of some kind, but you then run the risk of people not being honest in their responses to the survey as they may feel that any criticism of the business will jeopardize their chances of receiving a gift.
The responses will identify exactly what your customers feel is important to them. Now that you know their expectations, you can do your utmost to ensure that you meet them.