A simple workshop I put together for some derby based business on why carry out customer research and why it fits into a marketing plan.

1. Investigating Customer Service
Delivery
Customer Research

2. Aim of Workshop
• To be able to define customer care objectives.
• To distinguish the different approaches to
customer surveys.
• To analyse customer feedback.

3. Would like more free weights!
Visits with friends
Male
35-45 yrs old
Very Happy with your service

4. Identify through customer research?
 WHO is currently buying your product or service?
 WHY are people not happy buying it?
 WHY are people happy buying it?
 WHAT IMPROVEMENTS could be made to your product or
service to meet people's needs even better?
 What other NEW products or services could you offer people?
 WHAT is the perception of your product/service?
 HOW effective is staff training and development?

5. Why carry out customer research?
• S
•M
•A
• R
• T

6. Sample smart objectives?
• To have all customers happy all the time
• To achieve a 75% satisfaction rate in the first half of the year.
• To exceed all expectations.
• To have all fitness classes 60% full by the second half of the year.
• To ensure all customers achieve their fitness goals.
• To sell as many peak memberships as possible.
• To keep the changing rooms clean.
• All staff to be trained
In pair identify which are not smart
objectives.
Change at least two of the non SMART
objectives into SMART objectives

7. Approaches.
Timing of customer satisfaction surveys depends on the
 type of product or service provided
 the type and number of customers served
 the longevity and frequency of customer/supplier interactions
 the intended use of the results.
Three very different approaches to measuring customer satisfaction
exist. Each have their own benefits

8. Approaches
1. Measuring Customer Satisfaction with Post Purchase Evaluations
Post purchase evaluations reflect the satisfaction of the individual customer at the
time of product or service delivery (or shortly thereafter).
This type of satisfaction survey is typically used as part of CRM (Customer
Relationship Management) and VOC (Voice of the Customer) systems. Each focuses
on securing a long term relationship with the individual customer.
2. Measuring Customer Satisfaction with Periodic Satisfaction Surveys
Periodic satisfaction surveys provide an occasional snapshot of customer experiences
and expectations and are conducted for specific groups of consumers on a periodic
basis. Keeps the customers mind focused on your company.
3. Measuring Customer Satisfaction with Continuous Satisfaction Tracking
Continuous satisfaction tracking is often part of a management initiative to assure
quality is at high levels over time.
Benchmarking satisfaction would be an example. You can base tracking on post-purchase
evaluations or a succession of regular customer satisfaction surveys.

9. Feedback
• Is important as it helps the organisation to learn and grow.
• Feedback is part of the control system – reporting on the
results of your actions.
• These can then be compared against the planned outcome.

10. Gathering Feedback
• Must gather systematic, specific and meaningful feedback in order to
adapt, learn and grow.
Positive Feedback –
confirms that an
organisations plans and
strategies are working
Negative Feedback – is
even more useful in
identifying what the
organisation needs to do
to gain / retain customers
How do you gather feedback?

11. Methods of Feedback Collection
Formal Feedback Collection Informal feedback Methods
Surveys – Telephone, web based,
questionnaire
Front line staff-customer discussions
Online forums (on organisation’s website) Online forums and review sites set up by
their parties
Suggestion boxes Press monitoring
Analysis of formal complaints data
Review customer retention figures
Sales figure analysis
Should you encourage customer complaints? – How??

12. Objective: To ensure all staff have attended an Case Study
entry level customer care course, prior to
carrying out duties.
Q. How well did the member of staff listen to
you?
Result. Very well
Q. How quickly did we follow up any issues?
Result. Not very quick
Q. How eager to help you were the staff at our
company?
Result. Average
Q. How quickly did the staff at our company
help you?
Result. Quickly
Q. How knowledgeable were the staff at our
company about our products?
Result. Poor
You have been given the
results from a recent
customer care survey, looking
a specific objective. You and
your college have to analyse
the results.
Making two to five
recommendations to the
General Manager who wants
to maintain the good aspects
and improve the poor
aspects.
Unfortunately due to work
pressures, you have only 12
minutes before you have to
feed back your suggestions.

13. Further Reading
C U S T M R C R E O R Z O O B E D
U X Z G H L O O P R E E V I L H R
S A T I S F I E D D M O N E Y A E
T P L A M R O F I O L L I W P A
O E T P R O V E N N T B O I L P D
M E R G N W A E L A S U R V E Y S
E L A D E R G D G R U P B I L L P
R S M Y T G O B J E C T I V E S E
C E S Y L A N A B V S O R P M A L
A S E R V I C C E V M T R O P S L
R E Q U I R E K M E N T S W E T I
E D E B I M P R O V E M E N T S N
CUSTOMER
FEEDBACK
OBJECTIVES
CUSTOMER CARE
SURVEYS
SMART
FORMAL
MONEY
HAPPY
SATISFIED
IMPROVEMENTS

14. Further Reading
• Marketing Research of Apple

15. How is this information used?
Enquiries
Orders
Received
Geo-demographic
Information
Results of
Surveys
Customer service
Encounters
complaints
Applications
Segmentation
Selecting customers
To receive offer details
Designing offers
Cross-selling
New product development
Building a relationship
Loyalty Schemes
Customer
Database

16. 5 Ways Not to Write Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Restrictive multiple choices. When your answers don’t include the
response your participant wants, you’ve created a frustrated
experience for your respondents. They’re now faced with the
decision of answering inaccurately, skipping the question, or
abandoning the questionnaire altogether. Not very productive. Try
offering “I don’t know” or “other” options along with the multiple
choices, or consider adding a way for your respondent to add their
own response.
Two-part questions with only one response option. “Did you enjoy
our service and our selection? Yes or no?” What if your service was
impeccable but your selection was lacking? If there’s no way for the
participant to answer this question accurately, you’re going to get
skipped questions, or, perhaps even worse, inaccurate responses.
Make sure you’re asking for one distinct answer per question. Take
a look at our blog post about getting the most insightful information
out of multiple-choice and follow-up questions.

17. Requiring a response to every question. Yes, it would be great if every
single question in your consumer feedback survey was answered
thoughtfully and completely. That just doesn’t happen in the real world;
people are busy and distracted. Sometimes a question is missed as an
oversight, sometimes the respondent doesn’t want to provide the
information, and sometimes they’re just confused by the question. If
you require an answer to every single question - even the most
rudimentary ones - you’re going to find yourself with a high
abandonment rate. Keep the required questions to a minimum and let
them skip what they want.
Too many questions. Please don’t interrogate your kind participants
with page after page of highly detailed questions of every facet of your
business. Keep your client feedback survey as succinct as possible, and
you’ll have a better chance of getting meaningful data. Sometimes, a
simple one-question survey like a Net Promoter Score questionnaire is
all you need. Remember, you can always do follow-up surveys, and
you’ll learn more with each poll you do.

18. Forgetting the goal. It’s easy to ask a lot of questions in order to get the
most information you can. But each survey should have a specific goal in
mind, one that every question should help reach. Stay focused on your
goal, and you’ll get valuable information.

19. 5 Ways to Write Great Consumer Feedback Surveys
Stay unbiased. It’s hard to be objective when you think your customer
service is outstanding. Take a step back from what you think you know
and let your shoppers do the talking. Avoid embellishing your questions
with superlatives, such as, “What do you think of our friendly customer
service representatives?” This is a leading question, and isn’t likely to
provide accurate results. Instead, ask a focused question about an
aspect of your customer service, such as, “How quickly did the
customer service representatives at our company help you?”
Avoid the hypothetical. It’s hard for most people to accurately
determine what they may or may not do in a hypothetical situation.
Don’t fabricate customer service “what if” situations that may not have
happened to the respondent. Focus on situations that accurately
portray real-world customer service issues. Use a Likert Scale rating
question to ask customers to rate their experiences.

20. Use painless questions. If your participants have to read questions
several times in order to understand them, or if they’re repeatedly
asked to write essay-like responses, you’ll end up with a lot of
abandoned questionnaires. Write questions that are easily scanned and
answered without having to think too much or take a lot of time. A
question like, “How responsive is our company?” is much easier to read
and answer than, “If you have used our website, phone system, or email
help system in the past, did our customer service representative get
back to you in a timely manner?”
Don’t ask unnecessary questions. You’re probably eager to collect as
much information as you can from each survey, but avoid the
temptation. Customer service surveys that veer off course and ask
seemingly unrelated questions can distract or confuse the respondent,
and in some cases may even evoke suspicion.

21. Try using a “how.” You could ask questions like, “Is our company
professional?” with a “yes” or “no” option. But there’s a subtle
spectrum of positive and negative responses. To get even richer data, try
asking a “how” question, such as, “How professional is our company?”
with available responses like, “extremely professional,” “moderately
professional,” and “not at all professional.” This gives you a better idea
of where your customer service needs are.