Filed under: Survey Feedback | Tags: customer feedback, customer service surveys, iPhone surveys, mobile restaurant surveys, mobile surveys, restaurant surveys
It can be useful for a business if some customers are prompted to take surveys during their experience, as long as having them do so isn’t overly invasive. There can be real benefits to capturing feedback during the guest experience to gain deeper insight into aspects which might go overlooked or not be remembered too well at the end of their stay (i.e., how was the wait time? how were the drinks? how was the check-in process?). If this is done in addition to prompting other customers to take surveys immediately afterwards, the the overall insights can still be well rounded.
The most comprehensive surveys which gauge overall experience rather than specific elements of an experience are ones completed afterwards, within a few minutes of a guest’s experience.
Businesses should keep in mind the potential drawbacks of real times surveys taken during the service experience when analyzing specific survey data. At the same time, if used and interpreted correctly, focused surveys taken during a service experience can lend deeper insights into specific areas of the service performance which could have otherwise been forgotten.
Filed under: Survey Feedback | Tags: customer feedback, customer service surveys, mobile restaurant surveys, mobile surveys, restaurant surveys
Mobile surveys are easier to take and can be administered at any time during a service experience. Because of this, businesses can end up with confusing survey results when they transition from feedback tools that deliver fewer responses. The ease of taking mobile surveys results in more middle of the road feedback, as opposed to the more bi-polar results that are seen using survey tools that are less convenient to use.
For example, customers who are asked to take a survey at home after the fact are typically only going to do so if they were exceptionally pleased or displeased with their experience, however with an easy-to-take
mobile survey, there are going to be more moderate results. Keeping this in mind, these results should be viewed for overall trends over time as well as marginal changes on the extremes. Depending on when customers are prompted to take asurvey, and what aspects of service the survey covers, the results may not be successful at gauging overall performance. This brings up the question of how and when managers should prompt guests to take surveys.
If managers do want to gauge the overall delivery of service, they should prompt customer to take surveys immediately after they have had the full service experience. It’s better for customers to complete a post-service survey anywhere within a few minutes or hours after their experience. This timeline ensures an accurate and detailed response that takes the whole experience into account rather than just a portion of the experience as is occurring. The longer the time frame, the higher the likelihood of misrepresented, forgotten details, or incomplete feedback.
Filed under: Surveys | Tags: customer service surveys, mobile restaurant surveys, mobile surveys, restaurant surveys
In our last post we talked about some of the difficulties surrounding reputation management in the world of social media. We now want to highlight some ways to support reputation management through guest satisfaction surveys.
Social media outlets in themselves are efficient tools for providing general feedback on experience, but they don’t provide all of the important details that are invaluable for a business to address customer satisfaction opportunities on a proactive basis. For example, a customer with a problem may want to blast it out to a social network, but if you have a comprehensive guest satisfaction measurement system in place, you are creating your own ‘early warning system’ for potential problems a customer might encounter. In addition, using a feedback solution that gives your customers an easy and immediate way to provide feedback may preclude them from feeling the need to shout their dissatisfaction to the world.
With the growth and advancement of technology, customers are changing the way they interact with businesses. People are accessing the internet through their mobile devices at faster rates than they access it from their laptop computers. In addition, customers are also increasing the time they spend on social media websites due to the greater accessibility to apps through mobile devices. This change creates a more urgent need for businesses to stay on top of guest satisfaction metrics to help proactively manage their reputation and to respond to any critical feedback that surfaces through social media channels in a prompt and effective manner. This combination of approaches helps build a stronger relationship with the customer and insures that issues can be resolved quickly and efficiently, maintaining your positive reputation.
Filed under: Surveys | Tags: customer service surveys, mobile surveys, restaurant surveys
Having a good reputation is essential for maintaining a solid customer base and generating new customers on a regular basis. A good reputation is built by consistently delivering excellent service and promptly resolving the occasional inevitable mistake. Social media outlets have made it easier for customers to share their discontent with thousands of people instantly. Mobile survey technology enables businesses to learn about a negative customer experience before they leave the building.
Businesses can connect with customers quicker than ever with websites, social media profiles, e-mail, and text messaging. This makes it easier for companies to hear about any negative experiences customers have had with them, and reach out and resolve the issue in a prompt manner to stay in good standing with the customer. The downside of technology advancements is that your company’s reputation can take a hit before you even get a chance to solve the problem. Word of mouth reviews have gone from groups of friends to having mass impact on Twitter and Facebook where it can be viewed by thousands of people in just seconds.
One of the most important ways to uphold a good reputation is by reaching out to customers who have had negative experiences andcorrecting them as quickly as possible. The best way to address a negative experience is by delivering more than your customer would expect to be compensated for. Ideally, this would be in the form of bringing them back to your place of business to have a positive experience or in the best case, addressing it before they walk out the door. This can be a free meal, a free night’s stay at a hotel, further discounts, etc.
Filed under: Survey Feedback | Tags: customer feedback, customer service surveys, mobile restaurant surveys, mobile surveys, restaurant surveys
In addition to demographics mentioned in Part 1, businesses can survey the psychographics of their customer base to get an in-depth look at who their customers are in terms of personality, values, interests, etc. An example of how this might be useful is studying how trends in personality and interests affect areas relevant to your business. In a restaurant setting for example, you may notice a trend in your customer profile indicating greater interest in healthier diet choices or leaning towards vegetarian diets.
Restaurants who identify this trend through psychographic surveys can better target their menu, offering vegetarian alternatives or low calorie menu items to attract more of these key cusotmers to the restaurant.
Each of these categories is important for understanding the customers on a multi-dimensional scale. Although they can be helpful in all aspects of your business, customer satisfaction surveys are generally more helpful for receiving feedback on the current status of the business’ guest service, while demographic and psychographic surveys tend to help determine overall strategy decisions.
It’s important to note that your customers want their experience to be positive just as much as you do. Providing them with conveniently accessible mobile survey apps will allow them to give you the feedback you need to keep them happy and keep business flowing smoothly.
Filed under: Survey Feedback | Tags: customer feedback, customer service surveys, ipad surveys, iPhone survey app, iPhone surveys, mobile restaurant surveys, mobile surveys
There are various insights businesses can obtain when surveying their customers, including demographic data and satisfaction insights. Surveying customer experience includes evaluating the experiences the customer has with the company, especially service and product quality. An analysis of the customers themselves in terms of demographics and psychographics can establish a deeper understanding of the audience your business appeals to. Both are important in providing effective service and ensuring business growth, but it’s important to understand how each of these customer insights applies to your business in addition to how and when they should be taken into account.
Guest satisfaction surveys give customers the opportunity to provide feedback on their experience with your company through short yet comprehensive surveys. This is valuable to businesses because it helps to establish how the business is performing and where adjustments should be made to improve customer experience.
Analyzing demographics and psychographics provides a deeper look into your customer base that can be very helpful in determining how best to target marketing messaging and product offerings for your best customers. These data-driven surveys are helpful in understanding how to better cater your offering to the needs of your customer base. For example, a customer survey focusing on demographics may reveal that a particular restaurant’s customer’s consist mostly of mid-twenties females with low to moderate incomes. Focusing on the available income of this target, the restaurant can offer a more affordable menu item to draw more business into the restaurant as a logical and effective solution to declining sales.
Part 2 will continue the discussion of mining data from surveys.
Filed under: Surveys | Tags: customer feedback, customer service surveys, mobile restaurant surveys, mobile surveys, restaurant surveys
The distribution of a survey can make all the difference in how the customer might respond to it. Guests who have had distinctive experiences are willing to go out of their way to fill out a survey using different mediums, however, the type of system they use to take a survey could ipact their participation. You have to think about what is most convenient for them and what your customers will respond to. The options for survey distributions are far beyond traditional paper handouts, however that doesn’t mean paper surveys should be ignored entirely.
It is a common practice in hotels for a survey card to be left out on the desk to fill out at the end of the visit. In a restaurant, servers may leave a survey card with the bill at the end of the meal. Each of these methods are effective for receiving quick responses, but it’s unlikely that at the end of a stay a guest would go into too much detail about their experience. A customer might complete a survey on their phone as they are walking out to their car instead of feeling rushed to awkwardly fill out the card after they have already paid the bill.
Kiosks offer another method to fill out surveys, yet risk being more tedious and less effective depending on the environment. Kiosks offer just one survey at a
time and have difficulty accommodating every customer, whereas mobile and internet surveys can be accessed by many people at once with no problem. A setting where guests are one-on-one with staff for a specific period of time, such as a hotel checkout setting, is an environment where Kiosks may be more effective. Situations like this give staff the opportunity to direct the customer as they check-out to a nearby kiosk, as well as giving them an opportunity to add an incentive fill out the survey.
Online and mobile surveys, while more effective for gathering intelligence from many people at once, have their own set of drawbacks as well. While the ease and familiarity with web surveys is very high, there is a risk of them being put off until well after the experience. This can cause inaccurate feedback or the elimination of important details needed to properly assess how the business is performing. You need to gauge the environment and customer behavior within this environment to determine which surveying methods are most effective as you implement you guest satisfaction measurement program.
