Filed under: Survey Feedback | Tags: instant review alerts, mobiel survey results, Mobile review alerts
Customers notice problems with your service or restaurant environment much more intimately than your staff, especially with problems arising from sub-par service or issues with the environment, such as bathroom cleanliness. If a customer is bothered by something which may have gone overlooked by staff and management they may log on to a review website to vent and leave a negative review or fill out a complaint form. Once you catch the review you can respond by taking certain measures to improve the situation in order to prevent future issues, but the damage has already been done: the negative review has been posted, potential future customers may be discouraged from visiting your restaurant, and the customer has already left without giving you a chance to hear their concerns in person.
Rather than waiting to respond until after the incident has occurred, how can you catch the problem before it’s too late and resolve the issue with the customer in person? Using a feedback system, you can provide them the opportunity to give feedback about their dining experience before they leave the restaurant. Results can be delivered to management instantly, allowing you to take immediate action to recover from service problems if necessary. Giving customers the opportunity to provide feedback quickly and easily also demonstrates your commitment to providing quality customer service, therefore building loyalty and trust.
With instant alerts in a mobile survey system, you are able to send a management representative to speak with the displeased customer and make amends for the poor service. You need to be careful about how to approach the customer as it can be intimidating if you make them feel that the survey isn’t anonymous. Best practices are to simply stop by the table and ask how their experience has been, without referencing the survey at all. Frequently, a customer that has had an issue effectively resolved will leave with a positive impression based on the personal efforts you made to improve their experience. The end result is increased customer loyalty, trust in your business, and gives you the power to remediate problems before they escalate.
Using a real-time survey also allows you to gather results and spot positive or negative trends over a period of time. If you notice that one of your locations experiences a sudden uptick in customer complaints on a given day, you can investigate and respond to any regularly-occurring issues accordingly, before they grow into larger problems. You can also view reports over a longer period of time for a higher-level view of your business.
A customizable survey allows you to analyze certain aspects of the customer’s experience depending on your needs. For example, you can use the survey to test the success of new menu items and get specific customer feedback. You can also track the performance of individual employees, using the results to adjust training methods as necessary and to provide employee rewards as incentives for positive performance.
Using a real-time survey with instant alerts will allow you to more quickly and effectively respond to customer service issues, improve restaurant operations, and boost customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Filed under: Healthcare, Survey Feedback | Tags: Healthcare surveys, Hospital survey app, mobile survey apps, mobile surveys
Beginning in October 2012, patient satisfaction will reach a new level of importance to hospitals. Medicare, the largest single payer for hospital services, will give patient satisfaction more weight in determining hospital reimbursements based on quality of care.
In accordance with a new rule mandated by the Affordable Care Act, hospitals will soon compete against each other to best satisfy patients, receive the highest scores, and ultimately see higher reimbursements for services. Medicare plans to reserve 1 percent of its regular hospital reimbursements for a bonus fund, to be distributed to hospitals based on performance rankings and yearly score improvement.
Patient satisfaction ratings will be used to determine 30 percent of the total bonus payments.
To determine the ratings, patients will be asked to fill out Medicare-approved surveys once they are discharged. The surveys will ask a variety of questions regarding the patient’s level of satisfaction with their overall experience, including staff communication, the hospital environment, and the level of care. Medicare intends to set the bar very high, giving hospitals credit for only the highest possible responses.
Unhappy patients will now mean less revenue, an unpleasant thought for hospitals already struggling with increased pressure from 
insurers. Hospitals will have to put more thought and greater effort into delivering superior service and ensuring positive patient experiences. Service providers should ask patients directly about their performance in order to fully understand patient expectations and to determine how best to make improvements.
Hospitals can be proactive in improving patient service by implementing their own patient satisfaction surveys. Survey On the Spot’s real-time surveys can be customized to ask specific questions about their patient’s experience, allowing hospitals to spot weak areas that might negatively influence their ratings and to identify and solve potential problems before the patient checks out.
Through survey results, service providers are able to analyze their own performance and make the appropriate changes for their next patient, and any issues can be quickly addressed before subsequent patients are negatively affected. Results are recorded in real time and service providers are immediately notified of any negative feedback, allowing staff to quickly act to solve the problem before the patient leaves. Simply administering the survey on-site demonstrates genuine concern for the patient’s experience.
With Medicare’s new ratings system, it is of the utmost importance for hospitals to take extra steps to understand patient expectations, target weak areas, and identify and respond to immediate issues. What better way to ensure all of the above by asking patients directly? Real-time surveys will set the foundation for patient satisfaction, higher ratings, and better reimbursements.
Filed under: Restaurants, Running a better business, Survey Feedback | Tags: customer experience, customer feedback, customer service surveys, feedback follow up, guest-services
A great example of what NOT to do.
No matter how hard you work at making your business run well, there will be customer complaints. Some customers will keep their complaints to themselves. Others, though, will express their concerns to you through your Guest Satisfaction Surveys. If your customers are willing to be honest with you and share their issues with your business, they likely expect two things: problem resolution and personal follow-up.
Today, let’s focus on the latter. Many customer surveys ask for contact information for businesses to get in touch with guests after guests lodge complaints. Failing to follow up with a dissatisfied guest may result in a lost customer and a bad reputation. Handling customer complaints is best done with simple courtesy:
1. Listen: Read their comments fully and closely. If speaking in person, do not interrupt. They have something to tell you, you need to hear it.
2. Say Thank You: Always, always, always say thank you! Follow up with any customer complaints. Respond to them in whatever medium they provide you contact information; the more direct the better. If they give their phone number, call them. Let them know you care.
3. Apologize: If you care about your customers’ experience, you need to apologize. Do not rest on rationalizations and excuses; apologize for your customers’ subpar experience with your company. Make the apology sincere.
4. Show Respect: Consider the customers’ feelings and opinions when seeking a resolution. Work together to find the answer. Ask what the customer would like to have happen – the customer may expect less than you think.
5. Send a Note: Follow up with your customer and thank them for their input. Let them know how you made appropriate changes. Customers will often respond positively to your focus on making them part of the solution.
Your customers will appreciate your good manners and strong follow-up. Moreover, they will share that good experience with others. Just as an unhappy customer can keep potential customers away, a satisfied customer will relate that experience with others. Prompt, sincere follow-up is critical to address guest issues.
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: 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: Survey Feedback | Tags: customer service surveys, iPhone surveys, mobile restaurant surveys, mobile surveys, restaurant surveys
Conditional questions can provide businesses with a more accurate picture of guest experience by eliminating responses that don’t apply, or are less relevant, to a customer’s experience with the different service aspects offered by a business.
Reduce Irrelevant Guest Feedback
Let’s use a hotel as an example: Hotel guests who use a guest satisfaction survey app to evaluate their hotel experience may want to give an overall positive review of the hotel, but may not be eligible to give the same response for every aspect of the survey, as they may not have experienced all aspects of the services. For example, there may be a guest who had a pleasant experience overall with their stay, but who did not order room service. They may feel obliged to provide a positive review on room service anyway, simply to give a complete evaluation. Even if the reviews are positive, this does a disservice to businesses because it hinders the ability of the hotel determine an honest and comprehensive review of the various aspects of their services.
Structure Surveys More Effectively
Conditional questions that are structured around if/then statements allow the customer to feel more comfortable, and keeps them from answering questions that don’t apply to their experience. For example, a question might read: “Did you order room service during your stay at our hotel?” The customer can either answer “yes” or “no”. With a guest satisfaction survey app, customers can be led directly to the follow-up question if they click “yes,” or simply taken to the next question in the survey if they select “no.” This provides the management with more accurate survey feedback because customers are verifying their eligibility to answer the questions. An app can reduce the problem of inaccurate survey results because it won’t allow ineligible respondents to even see questions that don’t apply to their personal experience.
More Detailed Guest Responses
Conditional questions give guests the opportunity to be as specific as possible about their experience by allowing them to describe a good or bad experience in higher detail. Going back to the hotel example, if a guest reports that they did order room service and were unhappy with the experience, the app can lead them to a follow-up question that asks what specifically about the service was unsatisfying. Selections for this might include slow delivery, poor quality food, order mistakes, etc. Conditional questions allow customers the opportunity to be as specific as possible about questions that only apply to them. However, it’s important for businesses to use their personal discretion about how many follow-up questions are necessary, you risk annoying your customers with too many questions.
A guest satisfaction survey app is an effective tool for conditional real-time guest surveys, as many customers will encounter different aspects of your service throughout their experience with you. Describing a particular experience while it happens allows customers to give a completely accurate and detailed account that allows businesses to better understand where their strengths and weaknesses lie.
Filed under: Survey Feedback | Tags: customer service surveys, mobile restaurant surveys, mobile surveys, restaurant survey app, restaurant surveys
Part 1 of this blog post focused on how to track progress of surveys in real time. Below takes the next step into the process by addressing the evaluation and practical application of tracking real time results.
Evaluating Progress and Making Improvements
In any business that focuses primarily on service and interaction with other people, honest and consistent evaluations of service performance is one of the most crucial components to improve guest satisfaction. Develop evaluation systems which allow staff members to try out different methods and stick with the ones that have the most positive feedback.
For example, A customer may complain about slow service, cold food, etc. and ask to speak to the manager. A manager can try out different methods of solving the problem— such as offering a free meal, giving a discount card for the next meal, listening intently to the customer— and determine which one ends with the most positive review to apply it to similar scenarios.
Using Real-Time Surveys to Better Gauge Service Performance
Real-time guest satisfaction surveys not only make the job easier for management, but they offer a convenient and effective outlet for compiling detailed evaluations of the business. With surveys that are easily accessible from a mobile device, customers are more likely to report feedback as it’s happening. Customers win because they always have a place to report concern and satisfaction, and businesses win because they can gather an extensive evaluation of their services. Real-time surveys allow businesses to identify weaknesses to improve customer interaction and overall performance.
Filed under: Survey Feedback | Tags: customer service surveys, mobile restaurant surveys, mobile surveys, restaurant surveys, Survey On The Spot
Using real-time guest satisfaction surveys can provide a business with an honest evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of how well your staff serves your customers. Ongoing evaluations of guest satisfaction and your service performance are essential for recognizing patterns in performance and adjusting negative service patterns as necessary. By constantly revisiting guest feedback and your service actions, a business will be able to determine specific areas of progress and a set of established action plans to address opportunities for improvement.
Recognizing Patterns of Feedback
Let’s use a restaurant as an example: Restaurant management may see a pattern of positive guest feedback on the beginning days of the week with a decline on Friday and Saturday. From this standpoint, the management can step back and determine what the whole team can do differently to change this performance declination on the weekend.
The management can also look at consistencies in specific complaints: were most negative reviews about wait time, quality of food, or maybe server attentiveness? Looking for patterns in guest feedback and relaying them to your staff will allow you to focus on specific problems and improve weaker areas. Building action plans with your teams improves their commitment and engagement to long-term improvement.
Attributing Feedback to Specific Team Members and Giving Recognition
Guest satisfaction surveys can also allow the management to see which members of the team are contributing to a positive guest experience, and which ones need help. Survey feedback patterns can report overall performance of the business, but there will be specific differences across the team that allow you to praise or correct the efforts of a specific employee.
Say a week of surveys totaled 30 negative responses with 20 of them coming from a particular employee’s guests. Instead of focusing on the negative responses and applying them to the whole team, management may want to talk specifically with the employee to determine the problem and facilitate a solution. On the same note, if an employee is receiving particularly positive feedback, find out what they are doing right and relay these strengths to the rest of the team.
Part 2 will cover evaluation and real time tracking of performance.
