Measuring customer satisfaction
Call Center Learning Center Tutorial Series

Module 2 - How to measure customer satisfaction

         Download a printable version of this tutorial in PDF format

We will now provide our weekly tutorials in a downloadable PDF format so you are able to view and print them as resources.  Depending on the topic of the tutorial, you might choose to provide it as a handout with your team, business leaders or employees. 

We will also continue to provide the tutorials in html format as found below.

The Call Center Learning Center is excited to a new tutorial series on measuring customer satisfaction. This tutorial series pulls from Prosci's research-based toolkits and best practices reports. Module 1 explained why customer satisfaction surveys are a sound business strategy.  This module provides guidelines for how to accurately measure customer satisfaction.  Module 3 will explain how to report customer satisfaction survey results.  Module 4 will focus on setting and achieving customer satisfaction goals. 
 

Figure 1 - Methods for collecting customer satisfaction data

Please note that the customer satisfaction evaluations should be separate from any quality monitoring done in your call center.  With independent surveys, you will gather information from the customers themselves without having to "interpret" whether or not the customers were satisfied with the service via call monitoring.  Most customers will not take the initiative to complain to the agent.  Instead, they will tell their friends and co-workers how good or bad their experience was.  By offering them an independent survey to comment on their experience, customers have the opportunity to voice their opinions and you can assure them that any problems encountered will be addressed immediately.  This will work well to maintain their loyalty and avoid losing your customers to competitors.
 

How to measure customer satisfaction

The guidelines for building a customer satisfaction survey are as follows:

1. Survey a statistically valid sample size.  Consider the different types of customers you need represent (i.e. business, consumer, different geographical areas, frequent callers, first-time callers, etc.)
    
2. Word your questions carefully.  Be sure to avoid:
    
   • asking two things with one question, e.g. "Was the resolution of your problem timely and accurate?"
      
   • the use of company ling, e.g., "Was the CARP satisfactory?"
      
   • excessive questions that do not provide information that is relevant to the purpose of the survey.
      
   • questions that could be interpreted differently by different respondents.
      
3. If you use a rating scale, do not offer more than 5 options.  For some areas, you may want to ask both how the customer rated your service and how important that particular element is to the customer.  Finding out what is most important to the customer and acting on that data is more important than simply assessing your performance in every area.
    
4. Pre-test your survey with a few customers before sending it to many customers.
    
5. Acknowledge that any survey is an imposition to the customer.  The survey should never be longer than the original call.
    
6. Keep your surveys simple and short, and give the customer an opportunity to provide open and candid feedback.
    

What questions should your customer survey include?

Customer surveys can contain general questions about what quality of service your customers receive, as well as questions specific to your industry and market.  For example, you may ask the customer to rate your performance on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being very dissatisfied and 5 being very satisfied, in the following general areas:

• Overall quality of the service you received?
   
• Amount of time you waited to reach someone who could help?
   
• Expertise or knowledge level of person handling your request?
   
• Speed with which your request was handled?
   
• Appropriateness of solutions and products recommended?
   
• Overall tone and attitude of the person you spoke with?
   
• General comments about our service (an open-ended question that allows the customer to address any issues on their mind)

In addition to the ranking of performance in each area, you should also ask the customer to rank the relative importance of each area.  You may find that you are excelling in areas that are relatively unimportant to the customer, or vice versa.   An example scorecard with sample scores for a customer satisfaction survey is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 - Example scorecard for a customer satisfaction survey

Next steps

When customer satisfaction surveys have been completed, you will need to report your results.  The next module in this tutorial series will address how to report customer satisfaction results.  To get started immediately on effectively measuring and reporting customer satisfaction in your call center, the Call Center Measurement Toolkit provides valuable guidelines for measuring and improving customer satisfaction.  If you have specific questions, please contact a Prosci analyst for more information.