Customer Satisfaction Surveys: How to Use Them in the Service Industry

Your customers are your business’s lifeblood. When your customers are happy, your business thrives. But when they are not happy, your business suffers. But no matter how well you know your target customer, it won’t always be easy to gauge if your customers are satisfied.

Customer satisfaction surveys offer a convenient solution to this challenge. With these surveys, you go directly to the source to ask them about your areas for improvement. This guide will teach you everything about running an effective customer satisfaction survey in the service industry.

What Is a Customer Satisfaction Survey?

A customer satisfaction survey is a tool you use to check how satisfied your customers are with your brand and products. You can use the survey to identify unhappy customers and find areas for improvement. The survey will help you optimize products, as well as improve the customer experience.

Customer satisfaction surveys are essential if you want to know if your customers are happy. They also help you make adjustments and improvements in your business processes, as well as identify areas that are going well, so you know which practices you must continue.

Types of Customer Satisfaction Surveys

There are a few different types of customer satisfaction surveys. The type you choose will depend on your goals and the information you want to learn from the survey.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Survey

This type of customer satisfaction survey measures general satisfaction with your products. Customers can respond as Very Satisfied, Satisfied, Neutral, Unsatisfied, or Very Unsatisfied. The goal of this type of survey is to see how you do at meeting client expectations.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

This is the most popular type of customer satisfaction survey. You ask customers whether they would recommend your business by rating you on a ten-point scale. You then divide the responses into three categories.

• Detractors: These are respondents with a score of zero to six. They are dissatisfied and can hurt your brand reputation.
• Passives: These include scores of seven and eight. These customers are satisfied with your offerings but are not inclined to promote them.  
• Promoters: These are scores of nine and ten. These are your most loyal clients. They recommend your products and service to their friends.

Post-purchase Survey

As the name implies, you run this customer satisfaction survey after customers make a purchase. These tend to be short, with the goal of getting input from customers about your product quality, customer service, and checkout process.

Product or Service Development Survey

You use this type of customer satisfaction survey when developing a new product. You would send out this survey before launching a product to confirm that your clients need and want it. The goal is to learn more about product improvements and client needs.

Usability Survey

This customer satisfaction survey looks at the user experience. They are most commonly used to gauge the experience on your company website. You will typically set these as pop-up surveys on your website that appear for random visitors.

How to Run a Customer Satisfaction Survey

As you create your customer satisfaction surveys, keep the following tips in mind.

Keep It Short

One of the most important parts of running a customer satisfaction survey is ensuring that it is short enough to get responses. With a lengthy survey, only a few people will find time to finish it. Keep the questions concise and limit your questions only to that which is essential.

Stick to Important Questions

The number of questions in your survey directly impacts its length. When deciding on the questions to ask, think about your goal. For example, if you want to get insight for a product launch, you don’t need to know how a customer found out about your brand.

Let Respondents Know How Long It Will Take

As mentioned, the longer your survey, the less likely respondents will complete it. But you can increase the chances of more people completing it by telling them how long it takes to submit it. This allows them to make an informed decision, which reduces the risk of survey abandonment.

Use Neutral Words Without Abbreviations and Jargon

As you write your questions, make sure they are easy to understand. Don’t use acronyms, abbreviations, buzzwords, jargon, or slang that may not be relevant to your respondents.

Choose the Right Types of Questions

Understanding the various types of question formats will help you determine which works best for your survey. Multiple choice and binary answers (yes/no) require less effort from survey participants. This increases your response rate.

Semantic differential questions on a scale from five to seven points can help evaluate attitudes. You can also include open-ended questions to give customers the freedom to add any relevant comments, including ideas you can benefit from.

Construct Open-ended Questions Carefully

To get the most value from your survey, carefully construct your open-ended questions. These work well as follow-up questions asking why they answered the previous question the way they did.

Stick to a Single Scale and Survey Type

You can mix and match question types in your survey to some extent, but be careful to check your details thoroughly. It is not wise to mix and match questions that use different scales. In other words, make sure a higher number always correlates to a positive or a negative. So, it should be both “would always recommend” and “very satisfied.” If five means “would always recommend” in one question and “highly unsatisfied” in another, it can confuse customers and lead to inaccurate survey results.

Just Ask One Question at a Time

If you use questions that require a response instead of multiple choice, don’t be tempted to ask multiple questions at once. Responding to one question at a time will enable your respondents to think thoroughly about their answers. It also reduces the risk that customers accidentally skip a question.

Outline the Purpose of the Survey

Include a brief sentence or two about your reasons for running the customer satisfaction survey. This will encourage customers to respond, as they will understand why it is important to your business and their customer experience.

Offer an Incentive for Completing the Survey

If you want to boost engagement, you can offer an incentive for participating in the customer satisfaction survey. A good option for businesses is to give a discount code, as that even encourages your customers to purchase from you again. 

Customer Satisfaction Survey Questions for the Service Industry

With all those tips in mind, you may benefit from these examples of customer satisfaction survey questions for companies in the service industry.

• “How likely are you to recommend [Company] to a friend?” (With a five-star rating scale)
• “Tell us more about why you chose [Insert Number] as your rating.”
• “How can [Company] improve the checkout process?”
• “How was your experience?” (With a five-star rating scale)
• “Which is your favorite product category?” (With multiple choices)

You can also find customer satisfaction survey examples as you interact with other brands. From ride shares to product reviews, you are likely asked for customer feedback frequently. Observe the customer satisfaction survey questions you come across and tweak these to your context. 

Podium: The Secret to Running Surveys With Ease

Podium makes it easy to run customer satisfaction surveys and get customer feedback. Our tools let you automate the process of running customer satisfaction surveys and encourage customers to respond. From there, you can use all the information you gather to grow your business. 

Ready to give it a try? Start a free 14-day trial here.