Knowing how to properly and efficiently utilize your survey information can help you address issues and form better relationships with your clients and potential clients, so take a look at how you can use customer satisfaction surveys to boost your company’s growth.
Starting steps
According to HuffPost, gathering information from customer satisfaction surveys only becomes valuable to your landscaping company if you are able to learn from what you see and take action based on what you’ve learned.
“Your customer relationship surveys may confirm what you believe to be true – that you do a terrific job keeping customers happy with your products and services,” HuffPost says online. “But the point of these surveys is to tell you the truth, even if it is harsh sometimes.”
The overall goal of customer satisfaction surveys is not to measure the quality of your work; it’s ultimately all about finding out what matters to your clients and being able to develop your business into one that fits those needs to yield positive results.
Take time to ask yourself what you think is important to customers based on what you’ve seen over the years, what others in the industry are offering that you might not be and what specific things customers have told you are important to them.
Keep in mind that sending out one survey won’t give you all the results you’ll need, but sending out the first initial survey can serve as a good starting step. Regular surveys should be sent out later on to determine whether things have gotten better or worse, as well as to keep your company at the top of your customers’ minds.
“Consider committing to quarterly customer satisfaction surveys,” HuffPost says online. “Your first one offers you an important starting point, and after a couple of years of doing this, you may discover trends that can help you plan better and satisfy customers more thoroughly.”
When creating questions for the survey, be sure to take time to ask questions that will provide you with useful information and not just general statements. Offer questions that allow customers to rate performance on a numbered scale, but also include ones that allow them the chance to expound on their experiences and provide detailed information.
While it’s important to focus on sending out surveys, don’t forget to always keep a vigilant eye on your landscaping company’s social media accounts, as customers can also leave reviews online.
Don Evans, president of LandOpt, notes that with customers constantly using the internet, there’s more of an opportunity for them to leave positive and negative feedback on your company. And once those reviews are out in cyberspace, there’s no taking them away.
“You don’t hear many success stories from customers, but you will more than likely hear the bad ones,” says Evans. “With the availability of sharing with millions, the importance of customer service is at an all-time high. Word of mouth is still important, but today with a swipe and a type, that ‘word of mouth’ is shared all over the world.”
How surveys benefit your company
It’s obvious that customer satisfaction surveys will ultimately benefit your customers, as their concerns will be heard and acted upon, but these surveys can also help your employees.
“Employees who work in customer-facing positions in particular can benefit from seeing and understanding the results of your surveys,” HuffPost says online. “They can often add important insights to the conversation about the results. This can prompt improved employee engagement and equip your employees with insights that can help them offer better service or additional product offerings.”
As an added bonus, these surveys can also help give you insight into your competition and what they are and aren’t doing well. If your customers have comments on what other companies have done well in a certain area that you seem to fall short in, you can then make adjustments and improve your competitive advantage.
Along with understanding what areas you are and aren’t performing well in, look at surveys as an opportunity to find new ideas for products and services you could offer, as well as different community outreach opportunities you could begin to implement.
You could also reach out directly to customers with possible good ideas and talk with them in depth about how they think those ideas could come to fruition or how certain problems they’ve experienced could be fixed.
Once these areas have been pinpointed and discussed, then comes the time to make any necessary changes.
“Outline the ideal customer experience once the changes have been put in place,” the National Business Research Institute says online. “This will be a reference point once the new processes have been put in place to make sure the goals are being accomplished. Communicate what the company hopes to accomplish with the upcoming changes to all employees to encourage enthusiasm about the process.”
