1. Generating reports
    
2. Communicating results
    
3. Analyzing data

Customer satisfaction reports can provide key pieces of information to help you improve your call center's performance.  When summarizing the customers' survey answers, the information can be presented to represent three critical pieces of information to your organization:

• Your current performance in each area (see Module 2 for guidelines on how to measure customer satisfaction)
   
• The trend over time (how you are doing compared to last month, last quarter or last year)
   
• The benchmark and goals you have set for each area compared to your current performance (stay tuned for the next module in this tutorial series, which will focus on setting and achieving customer satisfaction goals)

Customer service survey data should be presented in an easy-to-understand manner.  Keep in mind that charts and tables are less intimidating and easier to interpret than spreadsheets or plain text.  Sample chart types include:

Bar charts
Each question is represented by a stack for each time period, with average score of 0-5 indicated.  See Figure 1 for an example of a bar chart for one month's results of a customer survey.

Figure 1 - Bar chart used to report customer survey results for one month

 

Line charts
Each question is represented by a line with successive time periods on horizontal axis to track trends.  Figure 2 shows an example of a line chart tracking the trend of customer scores for one survey question over one year's time.

Figure 2 - Line chart used to report trend of performance over time on one question

Charts and data can also be separated and analyzed based on different customer data, including the following:

• Demographic information (including gender, age, geographical location, type of business or any other demographics that are relevant to your call center strategy)
   

• Customer profitability (including first-time customers vs. returning customers or amount of purchase)
   

• Type of transaction or service (if your center is responsible for more than one function, such as order-taking and technical support, you will want to separate the customer survey results based on the reason for customer contact)

Step 2 - Communicating customer satisfaction results

Customer satisfaction results should be shared will all staff, including management, supervisors, agents and even other departments.  It is especially important to communicate results with leaders who can authorize investment in remedial action.  Guidelines for communicating customer survey results to the staff include the following:

• Keep your audience in mind.  The information you share with marketing will have a different focus from what you present to a Vice President, a Director of Customer Service or an agent.  You will provide more details to those actually working within the call center than you do to those outside the center.
   

• Post summaries or charts on the wall, put them on reader boards and discuss them during meetings so agents are kept informed.
   

• Ensure that the call center teams and individual agents understand how their work impacts the customer satisfaction goals of the center and the larger organization.

Trending should be conducted to track the center's customer satisfaction performance over time.  If targets and goals are not being met, it may be a training, staffing, or systems issue, but you will need to determine the actual root cause of the problem.  Continue to ask "why?" until you reach the factor that is causing the low performance.

Analysis may uncover necessary changes in a variety of areas, including system capabilities, staffing, training, marketing, business planning or work processes.  After analysis has been completed, the next step is to act on the data to make improvements to your customer service.  Guidelines and tips for improving customer satisfaction will be addressed in the next module of this tutorial series.