By: Alex Ziogas
Do your clients feel that your staff is competent, polite, helpful and professional?
Do your clients feel their expectations were met?
How would your clients rate your overall performance as a service provider/company?
Are you communicating with your clients in the way they prefer to be communicated with (email vs. phone vs. in person, or vice versa)?
The answer to these and many other questions can determine the long-term success or failure with your company. Maybe there was a time when you knew how your clients felt – but is that still the case? According to Inc. 500, “customer satisfaction surveys identify areas of your business that do not meet customer expectations. Not only are customer satisfaction surveys quick and inexpensive to produce, they are also guaranteed to yield invaluable results.”
As a business owner for more than 17 years, I can tell you with 100% certainty that it is critical – no matter what your field of industry – to know what your clients think about your company, your staff and the level of service you are providing. And, yes, the results are invaluable. At the end of every day, I want to know three things from my staff:
- Did we take care of our clients?
- Did we communicate effectively?
- Are they happy with our service?
If the answer is yes to these questions, the day was a success. And, if not, we do whatever it takes to ensure the outcome is positive and our clients are taken care of. At AZBS, over the last couple years, we send out surveys daily so after service requests are completed, a brief survey gets sent to rate our service and provide feedback. Many of you are probably familiar with these surveys. Then, every morning, the survey results and feedback is discussed and shared with the entire service team during our daily huddle. Our industry average for survey response rate is 20% and at AZBS, our response rate is at 50% and I have you to thank for that so Thank you! Also, I’m happy to report that our team had a 98% customer satisfaction rate in October, November and December. Our goal is to hit 99% and even 100% going forward.
Our surveys are built into our main line of business (LOB) software called ConnectWise, which is our ticketing system. If you’re interested in finding out how your clients feel about your service, there are a couple of options. LOB software like ours gives you the ability to create and send surveys right from the program. Or, you can quickly create your own survey and send it electronically using Survey Monkey. They offer four plans—Basic (free), Select ($17/month), Gold ($25/month) and Platinum ($65/month). I recommend keeping the surveys brief and under 10 questions so the Basic plan would be all you needed. Survey Monkey is extremely user friendly and you can setup a survey in about 15 minutes.
So if you are already have a system in place where you get feedback regularly from you clients, great. If not, implement a system today. You will be glad you did.
Thank you for taking the time to fill out our surveys and give your feedback. What you say matters to us. Here’s to making 2012 your best year ever!
All the best,
Alex
