The data you ignore is MUCH scarier than the data you collect.
But for whatever reason, marketing research such as focus groups and client satisfaction surveys are polarizing topics.
You have some organizations that live and die by data and truly believe in it. While there are other businesses that avoid it at all costs.
I would argue the benefits far outweigh the negatives when implementing a B2B customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey. If you don't agree with me, here are eight positive impacts that might convince you otherwise.
Positive Impact #1: Lending an ear
First and foremost, simply giving your customers or clients an avenue to voice their feedback goes a long way.
Sure, any major issues or problems be communicated on a daily basis without a survey but an effort like this allows customers and your company to take a step back and think about larger themes and strategies outside of daily minutiae.
A good analogy is playing football everyday on the field focusing on one play at a time, versus stepping back and viewing plays from the booth.
You need to spend time doing both and we all get so busy worrying about the little things we forget about the big ones.
Positive Impact #2: Prioritize improvements
Will you obtain a lot of feedback from your customers? Yes. (Hopefully.)
Will you be able to act on all of it? No.
Using simple techniques like asking importance of various factors and comparing those statistics to satisfaction with the same measures.
This helps you pull out the major themes that are important to your customers, which your company may not performing well on (high importance, low satisfaction below).
Customers understand you cannot fix everything and that's okay. Focus on fixing the common issues that are important.
Positive Impact #3: Competitive assessment
Do you wonder how you stack up against your competitors? You have a few options to tackle this in your CSAT survey including net promoter score (NPS).
Another option is to ask if your company performs better, the same as, or worse than your competition. This can help you identify where competitors are outperforming your business and vice-versa.
To learn more about NPS, watch this short video below.
Positive Impact #4: Brand feedback
Several questions in the survey can address your company brand. This can include asking the "first word or phrase that comes to mind when you think of Company ABC?"
You can also inquire about positive or negative impressions of the brand. This helps you identify "who you are" in the eyes of customers. The most important perspective that matters.
For example, say a marketing automation platform called SpotHub conducts an online survey with their target audience.
The survey results show that prospective customers choose a competing software because they perceive SpotHub to be too expensive. This perception came to be because SpotHub does not list pricing on its website.
Therefore, potential customers assume that it is something that will be out of their budget. SpotHub takes this insight and makes the necessary adjustments to its pricing pages.
Positive Impact #5: Identify customer needs
Use the survey to understand what your customers' needs and expectations are from your business.
- Do you meet those expectations?
- Are your customers using other firms to satisfy needs that you offer in-house?
- Are they even aware you offer those services?
Find out in a simple B2B customer survey.
Positive Impact #6: Anticipating trends
What are the hot button topics that keep your customers awake at night?
Are they expecting a change in budget during the next cycle?
Are they planning on shifting budget from campaign A to campaign B?
Our customer satisfaction survey company finds this type of market research to be a great way to stay ahead of upcoming changes in direction from clients. It allows your sales team to be more proactive.
Positive Impact #7: Uncover the "unspoken" feedback
When customers have good relationships and friendships with the sales team, it becomes difficult for them to voice negative feedback. It's human nature. Delivering bad news is not easy.
It's the equivalent of a college roommate not telling his roommate he is messy but rather telling everyone else in the dorm.
Sometimes customers need a confidential and objective platform like a survey to voice honest concerns that would otherwise go unspoken.
Recommended Reading: The Messy Roommate Bias and How It Might Be Impacting Your Customer Feedback.
Positive Impact #8: Benchmarking Data
In addition to the NPS market research benchmarks available by industry, you can also use the CSAT for internal benchmarking and goal setting year-over-year.
Aim to improve your CSAT or NPS score YOY by creating a baseline of results, identifying improvement areas, making changes, and measuring change. How has the dial moved?
Once fieldwork is complete, your marketing research team in-house or the 3rd party vendor you use can help compile the results for your business.
This includes closed-ended tallies and open-ended questions can be categorized so tables can be drawn as well. Focus as much time on strategic ideas and recommendations for your management team.
Reporting on the data is only the beginning of the customer satifaction journey.
Conduct Customer Surveys with Drive Research
Drive Research is a national market research company specializing in customer satisfaction surveys. Our team of certified market research professionals partners with both B2C and B2B organizations across the country to design, field, and analyze customer data.
Better yet, we offer actionable recommendations for how your organization can use the survey data to improve customer satisfaction and retention.
To learn more about our market research services, contact our team today.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
George Kuhn
George is the Owner & President of Drive Research. He has consulted for hundreds of regional, national, and global organizations over the past 15 years. He is a CX certified VoC professional with a focus on innovation and new product management.
Learn more about George, here.
