ISO9001 – Measuring Customer Satisfaction – Using Surveys – Do they work?

ISO9001:2008 requires certified organizations to monitor information relating to customer perception as to whether the organization has met customer requirements.

Customer questionnaires are a popular way of meeting this requirement by measuring customer satisfaction but how effective are they?

Simple questionnaires with a few smiley faces to tick provide limited information. They may provide a nice warm feeling if the sad faces are ignored but they are unlikely to generate any useful information that can be used to improve the business. So the first consideration for customer satisfaction surveys is to understand the objectives you wish to fulfill by undertaking the survey in the first place. Are you looking for customer re-assurance that say for instance your premises are clean or are you interested in finding out why your customer does business with you, if he/she is likely to buy again, and if and how, you could do more business with him or her, his organization and his colleagues.

The idea that simple surveys are likely to provide more results as busy customers are unlikely to afford the time to complete something more involved is a misnomer. If you are going to take the trouble to solicit information on your services then at least use the opportunity to try to learn more about what makes your customers tick and why they do business with you. You might also consider the other customer-centric requirements of ISO9001:2008 and ask for feedback on how effective customers feel your product and service information and communications are (ISO9001 clause 7.2.3)..

Having determined the objective for the survey, then you need consider how you propose to collect the information and to prepare a budget for the exercise. You could start with a voluntary internet survey. Drawback? Well, don't expect any meaningful results. At best your very satisfied customers, who would like to use the opportunity to say thanks, will complete it and those who are fed up with you might just use it to vent their feelings, but the vast majority, who are merely satisfied, non-committal and would move for promise of a better price or better service will just not bother.
You could post or e-mail the survey to a sample of your clients. The response will undoubtedly vary according to how close your working relationship is to those included in the sample. Responses will come from those with whom you have the closest relationships but these are the customers for whom you probably already know the answers. The average response to mailed surveys is about 3 to 4%. You can of course increase this by following up the original communication with a phone call. This is likely to double or treble the number of willing respondents but will still yield an incomplete set of results. .

The average consumers for the service industries are requested to complete a customer survey at an ever increasing frequency, and for a majority, the whole process has become rather tiresome. By far and away the best approach is to carry out the survey during a personal conversation with the customer, at a time when the customer has indicated it is convenient. This also gives you the opportunity to follow-up any concerns and to understand the background to any perceived shortcomings. The ISO9001 standard requires measurement of customers' perception as to whether you have met their requirements or not. Whether you have met the contract requirements is not so relevant. What is relevant is if the customer believes that you have met his/her requirements.

The bad taste of poor or sub-standard quality or service far outlasts the joy of receiving the product in the first place. Pundits have often said that a satisfied customer will tell 3 people on average about a great buying experience but a customer who is dissatisfied will tell ten about his displeasure. During recent ISO9000 and quality training workshops, I asked delegates to share with the team, their good and bad buying experiences. The number of bad experiences relayed back to the group far exceeded the good experiences. This is not because we experience more bad service than good, but because we remember the bad ones more readily. Often these issues are down to poor or misinterpreted communication somewhere along the line.

You can't afford to be complacent, (whether you are ISO9001 certified or not) if you want to improve customer satisfaction, you need to know exactly what customers think about doing business with your company. You can only really do this by examining the relationship in detail and with close and personal contact. This requires planning, time, effort and commitment but, will pay dividends in return of useful information to help you improve your competitive edge (and as required by ISO9001, improve your customer-facing processes and procedures). A tick on the smiley face is just nowhere near enough!