Measuring Customer Service, Part II

Last week you may recall I wrote about my unpleasant experience with a customer satisfaction survey at a local car dealership. Although my overall experience with the dealership was fine, I was instructed to only give high marks to the salesperson on the follow up survey, completely negating the benefit of conducting the survey to begin with!

This week I want to address another fatal flaw in this survey process-that of the survey itself! As part of my own business, we survey our clients and referral partners after every transaction, within one week of the closing. Our surveys are online and consist of 10 questions maximum that can be answered in less than 10 minutes. In addition, a comment box is provided so that I can receive feedback, whether good or bad, from our customers, in their own words.

The whole system is designed to help me understand how we are performing, our perception among our customers, and identify strengths and weaknesses so that we can continually improve our service.

Similarly, I had anticipated receiving a brief survey via email shortly after I purchased my car that I could fill out in less than 10 minutes and submit and move on quickly with my day.

Instead, almost 4 months after the original transaction, I received a 10-page form that included one subsection with 69 questions!