All types of businesses conduct surveys to uncover information that will help better their services and customer relations.

Increasing customer loyalty and gauging customer satisfaction are two key reasons why companies conduct surveys as they allow customers’ the opportunity to convey their experiences, and then allow businesses to understand their customers’ likes and dislikes.  

When conducting a survey you should be strategic, try to stay away from “yes” or “no” questions, so that the results you get back will be able to provide you with accurate and helpful data. 

When crafting your customer survey questions ask yourself, “What am I trying to learn?” “What am I going to do with the information?”

George Abernathy, a member of TMSA and president and CCO of Transplace, says, “We conduct our customer surveys on an annual basis, coordinating information needs across the company to avoid survey overload with our customers. We carefully watch how often we ask for customers’ opinions because their time is valuable to us, and it’s also more about quality over quantity of data. We utilize the most current online survey tools, because it’s important that we are sending our customers an online survey that is user friendly and easily makes it to their email inboxes.” 

Abernathy explains that his company works hard to ensure the survey questions and data is comparable to the previous year’s survey, as it allows them to see how they stacked up year after year. 

“We look for patterns in our data collection,” states Abernathy. “Since our company is always looking to improve, we make sure that we adjust our questions to reflect any added service offerings, but we do ask similar questions to provide consistency year-over-year and baseline information to show trends and changes. By revealing areas of strength and opportunities, we use the data to improve as a company and share best practices cross-company.”

One sure way to lose customer participation in future surveys is to discard the feedback you’ve collected. Once you’ve received the results it’s important to share this information internally. 

“On a macro level, Transplace has a corporate wide goal to achieve a certain level of customer satisfaction. To reach this goal, at a micro level, we share aggregated customer company information with each account team. This gives management and the front line information to help them improve where needed, and also provide their best practices for other accounts,” said Abernathy. “It’s very important for us to be able to measure the success of our different offerings to ensure we are fulfilling and hopefully exceeding our customers’ expectations.” 

A well-executed survey can provide a company with the tools needed to improve upon areas they are struggling with, address customer concerns and/or continue to provide excellent service. 

Dino Moler is the Executive Vice President of Client Solutions at LeSaint Logistics, LLC. He also serves as President of the Transportation Marketing and Sales Association (TMSA). For more information, contact info@tmsatoday.org.