Many B2B companies are struggling to trigger corrective actions based on the customer satisfaction survey (C-SAT). Exact Net Promoter Scores (NPS) are reported and nice looking power points are created for the management. Based on the results the management board agrees that we should improve our customer satisfaction. However, many companies are failing to execute concrete corrective actions. When it comes to the time to execute, the majority of good ideas are forgotten and business goes as usual.
Here is a list of 10 actions – how to build a world class “Customer Satisfaction Survey” process, which will delivery immediate results. These are my personal learning when I renewed Customer Satisfaction Process at SSAB (Swedish Steel company).
The most important is that the Account Team gets the customer replies immediately when a customer pushes a submit button. This will enable e.g. sales to start making corrective actions in the field without waiting reports for several weeks.
10 Steps to Build Customer Satisfaction Survey Process
1. Get customer satisfaction survey answers and reports to CRM tool.
2. Define customer target groups.
- Select customers from different organisational levels e.g. CEO, Designer
3. Personalize questions based on the target group e.g. Designers, Purchasing.
- Ask only relevant questions that add value to you
4. Automated email notifications to the Account Team:
- When survey is send
- From customer answers
- From negative responses e.g. NPS detractor trigger actions to sales
5. Define lead times for answering to customers’ requests.
- Preferable the same day the answer has arrived
6. KPI – Set metrics to support corrective actions and the speed of reply.
- Automated dashboards from corrective actions
7. Tie up personal incentives to support the process and corrective actions
8. Focus the top management follow up to the corrective actions.
- Should be monthly or at least quarterly.
9. In-depth analysis to support the big picture.
- In-depth analysis every 6 or 12 month. For example: open comments, NPS analysed per business area and target groups.
10. Process needs to be continuous.
- Quarterly statistics from development of Net Promoter Index
- Send surveys on ongoing basis through automated process (= daily). But, make sure one individual customer receives the survey only one time per year
