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Why invest the time and resources to do a customer satisfaction survey?
At AWISCO, we believe that surveying our customers is the best way to
measure whether or not we are doing what our customers expect of us. It
is this desire to constantly monitor our performance that has led AWISCO
to conduct three customer satisfaction surveys in the last seven years.
| How easy is it to place an order by phone? |
Worse than expected
As expected
Better than expected |
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In 1999, AWISCO was in the process of an ownership transition. My father
was getting ready to retire, and I was in the process of taking over the
business. AWISCO was also growing rapidly. These are just a couple of
the reasons that we decided to measure ourselves. We knew that we were
fairly good at what we did, but we did not know exactly how good we were.
We also did not know what areas needed improvement. It is this constant
desire to get feedback from our customers that led us to conduct our first
survey.
Survey Set Up
Our first survey was done in conjunction with a grant that a local community
college received to help small businesses in our area. The community college
had a person on staff who helped AWISCO design the questions. We created
a mailing list of approximately 400 customers. The survey was mailed and
our response rate was fantastic. Over 40 percent of the surveys were returned.
It did not hurt that I enclosed a signed letter from me with the reasons
why we were conducting the survey. I also attached a one dollar bill as
an extra incentive to have our customers return the survey.
| How satisfied are you with the turnaround
time of our machine repairs? |
Not satisfied
Satisfied
Very satisfied |
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After all of the surveys came back, we tabulated the results with the
help of people at the college. They suggested that we split the results
into the four categories that we still use today to run our business:
- High Importance/High Performance
- Low Importance/High Performance
- High Importance/Low Performance
- Low Importance/Low Performance.
There are many ways to tabulate survey results. At AWISCO, these four
categories are put into a grid analysis for evaluation. This grid has
worked for us and we will continue to use it in our future surveys.
| How satisfied are you with the quality of
our Machine Rentals? |
Not satisfied
Satisfied
Very satisfied |
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High Importance/High Performance
The high importance and high performance category is where the customer
believes that we are doing a very good job doing something that is very
important to the customer. This is where we excel and our customer appreciates
that we excel. In our surveys, our technical knowledge and our deliveries
always seem to fall into this category.
Low Importance/High Performance
The low importance and high performance category is where our customers
feel that we are doing a very good job, but it is not that important to
them. Our timeliness and accuracy of our billing always seem to fall into
this category.
| How understandable are our bills? |
Worse than expected
As expected
Better than expected |
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High Importance/Low Performance
The high importance and low performance category is where the customer
feels something is very important and we need to improve our performance.
It is this category that gives AWISCO its greatest opportunity for improvement.
Our customers are begging us to improve in this area and we take this
very seriously. Our machine repairs have been in this category and it
is an area that we have been investing in heavily and hope to improve
quickly.
Low Importance/Low Performance
The low importance and low performance category is where the customer
does not think that we are doing a great job, but it is not that important
to them. Our packaging has fallen into this category and unless on a future
survey it becomes more important to the customer, we will not invest many
resources into fixing our packaging.
| How easy is it to get information regarding
pricing? |
Worse than expected
As expected
Better than expected |
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Survey Frequency
The frequency of surveys is always a difficult question. While we would
like to have constant feedback from our customers, we know that it would
be impossible to conduct surveys that often. We have decided that every
two-and-a-half to three years works. It gives us time to implement the
changes from the previous survey and then see if our customers have noticed
the changes. Since AWISCO is a growing company, the frequency of the surveys
is very important.
As we add branches and increase our product lines, it is very important
that we understand the impact of our decisions on our customers. I firmly
believe that the customer knows a lot about us and is always willing to
help us improve. If you do not want your customers' feedback, then doing
a survey will not be worthwhile.
| How easy is it to place a “Special
Item Order”? |
Worse than expected
As expected
Better than expected |
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Response Rate
AWISCO surveys are targeted to specific groups. Some are sent via e-mail;
others direct mail. The return rate for these surveys is above average.
This past year, 30 percent of the surveys were returned, a rate comparable
to previous years. About a third more surveys are returned from those
sent via regular mail. One reason for this could be that it is easy to
delete an e-mailed survey. We continue to include one dollar bill in the
regular mail envelope.
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The AWISCO Survey asks questions about...
Phone Orders • Placing Orders at the AWISCO Counter
• Quality of Sales Representatives • Rentals
and Repairs • Availability of Information •
Customer Service • Billing.
View the complete survey here.
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Acting on Survey Results
AWISCO sends a thank you letter to everyone who participates in the survey
and gives us their name. We tell them the results of the survey and what
we plan to do with the results. If you are not serious about doing the
proper follow-up, please do not spend the time and resources doing a customer
satisfaction survey. You will only disappoint your staff and your customers.
Done properly, a survey is a wonderful tool to drive change in your organization.
If you use this tool wisely, you will have great results; but please be
aware that if a survey is not done properly, you and your customers will
not benefit. AWISCO has made sure that it is done properly, and we and
our customers reap the rewards every day.
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