How To Turn Customer Survey Results Into Action Plans

Customer satisfaction is at the heart of every business. Regardless of your business type, you can benefit from customer satisfaction survey results.

Did you know 70% of unhappy customers whose problems are resolved are willing to shop with a business again? As a decision-maker for your business, this means you can retain clients and customers by turning your survey results into action plans.

How often should I conduct a customer satisfaction survey?

It is advisable to conduct customer satisfaction surveys often enough so that you can address key business questions without relying on a one-size-fits-all approach.  Most brands conduct surveys at intervals of anything from 90 days to 1 year in order to get as much information as possible.

But the process doesn’t end there. Despite the majority of businesses actively seeking out customer sentiment with customer surveys, only a few act on the results.

We’ve conducted a survey, now what?

Why do businesses not take action on survey results?

Conducting a customer survey is the easy part. What is more challenging is identifying relevant data from the results so they can benefit your business. 

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There are a number of reasons why businesses fail to take action on their survey results:

• They don’t have the right tools to interpret the results
• They don’t know how to access actionable data from the surveys. 
• Failing to identify what needs an immediate response. 
• They did not ask the right questions. 

Any business serious about scaling will ensure that their surveys avoid these pitfalls by being insightful, direct and uncomplicated.

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning”

Bill Gates

Why should your business conduct a customer satisfaction survey?

Regular customer satisfaction surveys serve as an integral part of your business strategy to:

• Develop a positive relationship between you and your customers that acknowledges their concerns and uses their opinions to improve the product.
• Give key insights into the pain points of your customers and how their demographics are changing as your product develops.
• Build brand trust by improving the customer experience.

However, if those results are not translated into action plans, all your effort is wasted. Businesses should be able to use audience measurement results to implement data-driven action plans to move the company forward.

Want to know how to use customer satisfaction surveys to drive your business? Here’s what you need to know:

1. Have set survey objectives

What’s your purpose for conducting a customer satisfaction survey? Are you trying to identify patterns and predict trends? Gain valuable feedback? Understand your customers’ perspective? Retain customers?

Always start with SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound) objectives in mind.

2. Understand the customer’s experience

In a world where 95% of customers read online reviews before contacting you, it’s never been more important to ask customers how you can improve their experience.

Always keep in mind that every customer is unique – their buying journey differs and offers a different insight to your business.

3. Determine the root causes of customer pain points

Once the gaps have been identified, deep analytics are required to determine the root causes that will become the action points. What are the reasons for the positive or negative feedback from your customer base? 

Positive responses justify your ongoing marketing and business efforts and helps businesses know where to put more focus for continued satisfaction. 

Negative responses reflect areas where your customer experience can be improved, but they are often symptoms of operational issues that affect your customer journey. By identifying the causes of problems, you can formulate strategies to avoid them in the future. 

A key point to remember is that while customer feedback can guide business decisions, it can also divert the attention of a business from its long-term goals. 

Read more: How Mobile Data Collection Is Helping To Address Africa’s Consumer Data Gaps

It’s important to drill down to the operational causes of the problems so that decision-makers can prioritize strategies that will make the biggest difference to customers and fit into the overarching objectives of the business.

What patterns can you find in your survey results? Those are the points of reference for your action plan.

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4. Organise and categorise results

After the survey results have been collated, they have to be organised and categorised. 

At Survey54, we offer survey insights to help you organise your survey results by sitting with your team to discuss KPIs for the issues that are most pressing.

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You can reach conclusions based on the answers you get from the online survey by analysing patterns in the results. Here’s an example:

Suppose all of your customers are satisfied with a particular aspect of your business, but there is an area where a significant minority of customers have shown disapproval. This pattern can be identified and remedial action processes implemented to fill the gap.

5. Analyse your results

Businesses can develop strategic and tactical road maps for the implementation process by analysing their survey results. This enables businesses to make improvements to existing products and services to meet market requirements. The insight also assists in developing new services and products based on customer demands. 

6. Develop an implementation plan

When patterns and areas of improvement have been identified, the next steps should enforce the necessary actions using key business goals and customer experience as reference points.

Communicate what the company hopes to accomplish with the upcoming changes to all employees to encourage enthusiasm about the process.

7. Monitor the progress of the action plan

After areas of improvement have been identified, it’s important to keep track of progress and feedback. One way to do that is to assign actions to different members of the team, all working together and reporting regularly on the status of the plan of action.

Customer satisfaction surveys are necessary for every organisation, you cannot afford to leave things to chance with the huge market competition out there. Losing customers will cost your business in the long run.

Instead, leverage your survey results to win back your unhappy customers and boost the numbers of more happy customers. This guide will help your business implement customer survey in successful organisational change in the shortest time possible.

Remember to always monitor and re-measure by conducting customer surveys at regular intervals to improve your action plans for the best result.

Survey54 enables businesses and organisations to get real-time insights into their audiences across Africa. Get in touch with us at info@survey54.com or visit https://survey54.com.