Warning: Customer satisfaction surveys
may cause delusions of adequacy!
Last month, I cited a study in which 80% of senior managers interviewed believed their companies were
doing an excellent job of servicing their customers but only 8% of their customers agreed. In my view,
customer satisfaction surveys contribute to these delusions of adequacy. Here are six reasons why.
Firstly, customer satisfaction surveys tell you nothing about customer loyalty, which is one of the
two factors that drive long-term business success. Surveys typically ask customers to rate whether they
are ‘very satisfied,’ ‘satisfied,’ ‘dissatisfied,’ or ‘very
dissatisfied,’ with some aspect of the company’s performance. In my experience, when managers
review the survey results, they lump the percentage of customers who were ‘very satisfied’ with
those who were ‘satisfied.’ Then the results typically suggest 80% or more of their customers
are happy. The trouble is, very satisfied customers are likely to be loyal while merely ‘satisfied’ customers
are not. Research shows that up to 86% of customers who defect are satisfied when they switch suppliers.
This is because when you satisfy someone you simply give them what they expect and that is not likely
to create a memorable experience, one that is so good they will want to come back for more. If companies
looked only at the proportion of customers who were ‘very satisfied’ with their performance,
they would likely find it dropped to less than 15%.
Second, customer satisfaction surveys tell you little about whether your customers feel so good about
their experience doing business with you they are likely to recommend you to others. Word of mouth is
the second factor that drives long-term business success with recent research from the London School
of Economics finding that companies who have many customers saying good things about them and very few
saying bad, grow four times faster than other companies. Merely ‘satisfied’ customers are
not likely to be sufficiently moved to tell others about their experience with you. To recommend you
to others, your customers must have a memorable positive experience and that kind of experience is more
likely to have left them feeling very satisfied.
Third, customer satisfaction surveys measure what the company believes is important, which is not
necessarily what the customer thinks matters. Clients often give me mystery-shopping reports to review.
My first question to them is always, “How do you know that these are the things that matter to
your customer?” They usually do not because rarely do companies go to its customers and ask them
to describe the kind of customer experience they would like to have. They just assume they know. To
make doing a customer satisfaction survey worthwhile, you first need to know that what you are measuring
is of critical importance to your customers.
Fourth, customer satisfaction surveys might actually prevent companies from hearing what they need
to hear. Twice last year I was contacted by market research firms and asked to participate in a customer
satisfaction survey for a major New Zealand company. In both cases I declined to take part because of
the length of time it was gong to take but I said I did have some feedback based on a recent bad experience
with their client. In both cases the research heard me out and then said, “No, we can’t
record that because it doesn’t match one of the questions on our survey form.” Now, what
is the point in spending a lot of money doing research that might actually prevent you from hearing
what your customers really want to tell you?
Fifth, customer satisfaction surveys are so numerous and complicated that very few of us actually
fill them out, or if we do, we do not put much thought into our answers. How many surveys do you decline
to participate in? If you do fill out a form, how often do you tick ‘satisfied’ because
you cannot be bothered thinking any more about it?
Sixth, many customers are skeptical that anyone would actually read or heed their comments if they
did participate in a survey. Having spent years listen to managers review the results from customer
satisfaction surveys, I think this skepticism is well deserved. I remember being told by a very important
customer to a five star hotel, a woman who herself was a top manager in one of this country’s
biggest companies, that she got tired of filling out the customer satisfaction surveys in her hotel
room because nothing ever changed. One day she met with the hotel manager and, waving the survey card
in his face asked him, “Does anyone ever read these?” I cannot remember his answer but she
never bothered to fill out another survey card and soon stopped staying there altogether. Of course,
she also told lots of other people about her bad experience.
All things considered, it seems to be that conducting customer satisfaction surveys is not only a
waste of time and money, but potentially dangerous because it will lead you to believe you are doing
better than you are. When it comes to traditional customer satisfaction surveys, my advice is let the
trees live!
|
