Create an Ongoing Customer Satisfaction Tracking Research Program

Polaris Marketing Research is fully experienced in creating and revising customer satisfaction measurement programs of all types.

Relationship Surveys

Customer satisfaction relationship surveys, sometimes call “snapshot” surveys, are not tied to specific customer transactions. Rather, these are usually random surveys with customers wherever they may be in the product/service life-cycle. Many companies conduct these just once a year to get a sense of the where customers stand on average. They are designed to “take the temperature” of the overall. By their nature, they are not built for diagnosing specific service issues or providing timely feedback for service improvements.

Transactional Surveys

Transactional surveys are built for fast and actionable feedback for continuous improvement process efforts. Whenever possible, the surveys should be conducted as close to the time of a customer’s transaction with the company as possible so that they remember the experience accurately. It also ensures that they are less likely to be influenced by subsequent transaction experiences with the company or elsewhere. So, typically these are surveys with customers who had a transaction, ideally within the past 48-72 hours, with company representatives in such areas as:

• Sales
• Customer Service
• Billing/Collections
• Finance
• Installation
• Repair/Warranty Services

Each of these service dimensions are measured overall (“macro-level”) as well as on a number of sub-categories (or “micro-level dimensions”), such as:

• Courtesy
• Promptness
• Professionalism
• Knowledge
• Understood my concerns
• Kept me informed

If a baseline research phase was conducted, then you will know which of the macro-level dimensions (and which of their associated micro-level dimensions) have the greatest impact on overall satisfaction. For the short-term, those are the only dimensions that need to be included in an ongoing customer satisfaction tracking. Periodically (maybe annually), a key driver analysis survey should be repeated to verify not only the degree of importance of each service dimension but also to test whether new service dimensions have come into play.

Contact us to learn more about Customer Satisfaction Measurement Programs.