IT Benchmarks: Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Following on from my last IT Benchmark blog on Knowledge Management and Reuse, this time around we are going to look at Customer Satisfaction Surveys and how to encourage responses.

The Benchmark

The average response to Quick Surveys (upon closing tickets) is 8.67%.

This figure is alarmingly low, and there are many opinions as to why that is, but it effectively comes down to:

• Surveys are too complicated or long
• People tend not to respond when service was average – only the really happy end users or the really unhappy end users will probably take the time to complete a feedback survey
• People feel as though their survey responses disappear into a black hole

The Advice

My advice for encouraging users to respond to Quick Surveys is:

• Ensure that it is always easy for your end users to provide feedback. Even if you only opt for the most simplistic method of eliciting feedback – sad face or happy face!
• Ask questions about the experience they had, not what you did – otherwise you know the mechanics were right, but does that necessarily mean that the end user was happy?
• Communicate to your end users that you want to hear their feedback and that you are listening (and you need to show them that you listened by acting on the feedback they give you)
• Share your Quick Survey response details with your end users:
  • Highlight percentage of responses and service satisfaction
  • If your service satisfaction responses are poor, highlight how you aim to improve your level of response and encourage end users to continue to provide feedback
• Consider sending out a monthly update that states ‘this is the feedback that we received’ and ‘this is how we acted upon it’

Ultimately, the answer is that if end users knew that their time investment would help employees or the company improve its service to them, they’d be more cooperative and engaged, and thus you’d receive a higher number of responses to your Quick Surveys.

Do you know what your response rate to Quick Surveys is? Do you even send out Quick Surveys? If yes, do you act on the feedback or does it somehow end up being ignored? Please share with us in the comments section below.

This is the last blog from me on IT Benchmarks and advice for now, but please let me know if there are any specific benchmarks that you are interested in seeing or areas you are looking for advice in. I’d be more than happy to continue this series on the request of a reader.

Please share your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter, Google+, or Facebook where we are always listening.