Customer Surveys and the Voice of the Customer

Recently, I launched a customer survey program. This program was started for many different reasons. Some of the reasons were begin listening to the voice of the customer, projecting renewal rates, and attain market intelligence on what was important to our customers and what was not. The results of the surveys were staggering right out the gate. Customers were eager to tell us what we don't do very well and what they wanted to see from us in the future. The interesting thing was what some thought customers wanted were very different than what they actually wanted.

The surveys sparked many strategic conversations throughout the organization. Starting with "what do we really know about our customers?"

It will be exciting to be a part of making the organization more customer centric and being able to quantify the change through customer feedback. Other ways we are using customer surveys:

• Rating customer satisfaction for each individual of department in the organization.
  
• Quantifying the biggest pain points for our customers and then ultimately improve them.
  
• Educate our customers on the areas where there are the biggest misunderstandings, therefore reducing inbound call volume into the Customer Care team.
  
• Reach out to customers who leave especially negative feedback about a specific experience in hopes of solving the issue before a customer uses other channels to vent their frustrations (BBB, social media).
  

We face a lot challenges to improve our customer experience but knowing more about what the customer really thinks is a huge step in the right direction.