Question

Topic: Customer Behavior

Is There An Effective 360 Degree Customer Centric Survey Available?

Posted by Anonymous on 2/21/2004 at 1:29 PM ET 250 Points
We are currently restructuring our company to be more customer focused. In doing so, we are searching the best methods to find out more about our customers with what they desire/need in order for our relationship to become more effective. We want to look at this from a 360 degree point of view of the customer as well as a 360 degree point of view from our company. We are discussing the possibility of surveying our customers but in a way that isn't as obvious. Any suggestions are more than welcome.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Blaine Wilkerson on 2/21/2004 at 2:02 PM Member
    Well first of all, I would have to say that utilizing a company that can customize an online survey for both your company and it's customers is the best route to go. My firm has an excellent service for designing, hosting, and reporting a detailed analysis.

    Email: jett_enterprises@cox.net

    If you want to try to be "sneaky", I would run a promotional give-away based on your customers answering either specific questions about your products/services or indirect questions designed to get the customers to reveal their needs and desires without being product specific. I would choose the latter due to the fact the custome may simply say all your stuff is great just to win the prize. Therefore, asking indirest questions related to the outcome or utility your company provides will help "trick" them into honest answers.

    I hope that helps!

    Good Luck1
  • Posted by Paul Linnell on 2/21/2004 at 4:41 PM Accepted
    Hi Angie

    First of all, I would be very careful not to jump towards one particular medium (web / phone / mail / interview) before understanding the type of industry you are in, the type of relationships you already have with your customers and how they currently communicate with you. For example, there is little point in a phone survey if you are a in the consumer goods market and you don’t know who your individual customers are. Or, web surveys only work where a large proportion of your customers have regular access to the Internet.

    Secondly, as part of your restructuring towards customer-centricity, you should consider a more self-sustaining business model that will ensure that “the customer” and “the customer’s” evolving needs wants and expectations are a more predominant feature in you company’s product and service development and your company’s quality improvement processes.

    This goes much farther than “a survey”. It involves a complete change in corporate culture that shifts towards embracing customer opinions and their feedback (both positive and negative). You therefore need to make sure that any surveying you conduct is part of a carefully designed programme of corporate change transitioning towards being customer-driven.

    You are also quite right to proceed cautiously since you must make sure you don’t set your customers expectations of future improvement that you cannot meet.

    Anyway, the best people to help you in this area are those who specialise in “customer-driven quality” and have specific consulting and survey methodologies geared towards customer-centricity etc. (For general market research – there are many companies who do a good job).

    But for customer-driven quality I can suggest you try the following (depending on where you are):


    In North America:
    - Customer Care Measurement and Consulting:
    (https://www.customercaremc.com)
    or
    - TARP:
    (https://www.tarp.com)

    In Europe:
    - TARP:
    (https://www.tarp.co.uk)
    or
    - Colin Adamson Ltd
    (https://www.colinadamson.co.uk)
    or
    - CRL Solutions Ltd
    (https://www.crlsolutions.co.uk)
    or
    - SurveyLab: (for on-line surveys)
    (https://www.surveylab.co.uk)

    In Australia / New Zealand / Asia Pacific
    - CTMA:
    (https://www.CTMAworld.com)



    Best of luck

    Paul Linnell
  • Posted by Blaine Wilkerson on 2/22/2004 at 11:00 AM Member
    I have been doing some more thinking regarding your question. Here's another way to perhaps obtain customer feedback without being obvious:

    Most people don't know that Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, A&W Rootbeer/Burgers, and Pepsi are all owned by the same corporation.

    Using them as a hypothetical analogy:

    (I should mention this would require you to acquire a Trade Name under your current corporation. A rather inexpensive procedure depending on your State/Country policy.)

    Let's say you are "Taco Bell" and you want to survey your customers indirectly. "Pepsi Co." could run a promotional survey (based upon the criteria mentioned above by the other experts), asking questions like "Who has the best tacos, burritos, salsa, combo meals, etc. and why". Every one who participates stands to win a prize such as a year supply of Pepsi or a trip to the Bahamas. This way, you stand to gain some customer insight of one of your companies without directly revealing your true intention or identity.

    Now, I realize my example may not exactly equivicate to your scenario since Taco Bell and Pepsi are both well known establishments and your assumed trade name is most likely not to be. In this scenario, I would use a tradename that implies a company that merely gathers information, a "census" if you will. A name like "Consumer Census Solutions", or somthing along those lines, may get a good reponse ratio from your current customers.

    Just a thought....

  • Posted by telemoxie on 2/24/2004 at 1:26 AM Member
    One project I'm working on which has shown positive results is to call business customers on behalf of my client company's President, and ask both qualitative and quantitative survey questions.

    If you are a medium sized B2B company selling a relatively profitable product, this might work for you as well. When issues come up during the calls, your President can mobilize resources to resolve them. If your President is not willing to be personally involved, then all the "restructuring" might be a waste of time...
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