Satisfaction Surveys » Service Satisfaction Survey

How many times have you gone to an expensive restaurant and left feeling that you did not get your moneys worth? Service satisfaction surveys provide valuable customer feedback on perceived value for services rendered.

As more companies realize that higher levels of service reap higher profits,
measuring service satisfaction levels becomes increasingly more important. The simplest way to determine whether you customers/clients value your service is to ask them. An online survey is the quickest and most cost effective way to measure customer satisfaction.

Survey Goal

Knowing where your business or organization is falling short in providing quality service gives best “direction” for management to plan a quality improvement program. Companies that listen hard and respond quickly increase their “bottom line”. Knowing what you customers expect from your service and the value they associate with it will provide valuable information that will effect company decisions. Recommendation through word-of-mouth, cross-selling, can greatly impact your financial returns.

The more specific your goal, the easier it will be to measure. Here are some sample goals commonly measured:

• Quality of service
• Speed of service
• Value of service

Survey Questions:

Service satisfaction questions should be geared towards improving services provided by your organization. The beauty of online surveys is that they ask standard questions ensuring that you will collect the same information from everyone. Keep your questions short and succinct. Most people are busy and will not be interested in filling out a survey. Letting them know up front that the survey should only take a few minutes and that completing it is an attempt to find out how you can better serve them will make them feel less put upon and increase response rate.

Remember not to ask loaded questions that can sway a respondent’s answer. Also avoid double-barreled questions, broad questions, and the use of double negatives. Refer to our Survey Question page for common survey mistakes.

If you do not know your customer base, you may want to start your survey with some demographic questions such as gender, age range, income level, marital status and zip code to build a profile of your “typical” customer. Knowing who your customer is will allow you to develop targeted marketing campaigns. Assure your respondents that all information is confidential and will not be shared with third parties. This too will help increase your response rate.

Always keep your goal in mind when asking a question. Avoid any questions that stray from your objective.

Here are some common service satisfaction survey questions:

• How easy is it for you to contact us?
• How quickly were you served?
• Was the service representative courteous?
• Was the service representative knowledgeable?
• Did the service representative understand your request?
• Did the service representative deliver the service requested?
• Do you have any specific service complaints that were not addressed?

Questions could also pertain to the environment or culture. These questions could be related to noise level, cleanliness, comfort, etc. For example:

• Did you find the accommodations pleasing
• Was the bed comfortable
• Was the atmosphere relaxing
• Was the area clean

Scales are a great way to allow your customers to easily measure their satisfaction level with your service. Use one of our Likert Scales to rate level of satisfaction on a scale of 0-10 or 0-5 or use our Star Rating question type.

Survey Example:

SurveyGizmo has several pre-built customer satisfaction templates to help you get started. These can easily be customized to meet your needs and can be branded with your corporate logo and style.

(Click to explore survey)

Once your survey is complete, test it multiple times, and review the reports to see that the data is setup to meet your analysis needs. SurveyGizmo’s generate test data feature will allow you to auto generate test data. This type of test works best with closed question types. Once you are satisfied with your survey, it is time to distribute it. There are a variety of ways to distribute your survey. See our Data-Collection page to read more about distribution methods.

Timing is always key. Know when it is appropriate to send a customer service satisfaction survey. In many cases, it is best to send your customer service satisfaction survey right after the service is rendered so you capture your customer’s response while the experience is fresh.

Should you have a negative survey response, you can setup a survey action to trigger an email followup action. Responding quickly to a complaint and acknowledging a service issue can change your customer’s perception.

Survey Reports:

SurveyGizmo provides real-time reporting so that you can view your responses as soon as they come in. We offer summary and comparison reports.

Within Summary Reports, the Likert Scale question can be represented as a table, pie chart, or bar graph.

(Click to demo this interactive report)

The data can also be exported as a CSV/Excel, Word or PDF file. See our Survey Reports page for more details on our reporting features.

The success of your Service Satisfaction Survey will be measured by the actions you take to improve service for your organization. This should be an ongoing effort to continuously improve your operations.

Additional Resources:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1252298

http://www.qualitydigest.com/sept00/html/satisfaction.html

http://www.surveysystem.com/sdesign.html

http://www.smallbusiness.chron.com/

http://www.surveygizmo.com/survey-blog/customer-satisfaction