Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Who responds to customer satisfaction surveys? On the surface, these surveys seem to be out and out useless. They are nonscientific--very few people who use products bother to spend time filling out customer satisfaction forms. Thus, what can you possibly do with the information you glean from your surveys? Truth be told, satisfaction surveys can play a critical role when it comes to informing and determining your CRM strategies.

Although you or I might not be apt to fill out a customer satisfaction survey, there are people who love judging products and voicing their opinions. These people, known as “mavens,” tend to keep meticulous notes on products and services. So what, you may be asking, who really cares if one meticulous client cares or doesn't care about your service? You're concerned about customer trends--not customer anomalies.

Listening to the Opinions of Product Mavens

The rub is that mavens are the people who spread information. If you're looking for the best kind of car to buy, for instance, you’ll likely go to a friend or relative who is known for meticulously judging cars. In other words, even though a maven may be just one customer, he or she has the potential to influence hundreds, if not thousands of other customers.

Thus, when you take care of the mavens by offering customer satisfaction surveys and responding to their queries, you gain tremendously powerful allies. Conversely, if you ignore the complaints of mavens, you could suffer catastrophic business consequences. The lesson here is that offering surveys and responding to client feedback can indeed prove useful to your business.