Creating and Monitoring Customer Satisfaction

Transcription

1 Creating and Monitoring Customer Satisfaction Prepared by Daniel Wood Head of Research Service Desk Institute Sponsored by

2 Introduction Customer satisfaction is at the heart of everything that the service desk does, but knowing how to measure it, what to do with that information and how to improve service based on feedback is a significant challenge for many service desks. Indicative of the service desk s evolution has been the increased usage of the word customer and the move away from user. Employees are no longer just users of IT and the service desk, instead they are customers. They purchase IT services, which come with service and support attached to them. But how do we turn our customers into loyal customers who rave about the service that we provide? If we were to ask our customers today if they would use another service desk, how many would say that they would remain loyal and not jump ship? In other words, how do we know what our customers want, need and demand from the service that we provide? In this guide, we ll look at how to measure and record customer satisfaction and explore the ways in which you can turn feedback into service improvements that will drive quality service that is consistent and superlative. 2

3 What Do Our Customers Think of Us? How many times have you been asked for your feedback on a company or product this week? It seems that you can t visit a website these days without being asked your opinion. Was this information useful? Did the solution provided fix the problem? How often do you use our services? Any comments? We re bombarded with requests for our feedback because it is so important when delivering services. How else could the CNN know if their website was meeting (or hopefully exceeding) their and your expectations? Customers drive so many industries and services that understanding what they think and feel is incredibly vital. So how do we survey our service desk customers and encourage them to engage with us and enable us to drive service improvement? Customer feedback is one of the most important mechanisms that we have to understand if we are meeting customer expectations and whether we are delivering the standard of service that is required. Having customer feedback mechanisms in place allows service desks to understand more about their customers and enables them to see how the service they deliver has changed over time and where improvements have been made. Ultimately then, customer satisfaction is the key driver for Service Improvement Plans (SIP) as everything that the service desk does should be predicated on enhancing the customer experience. 3

4 How to Engage with Customers There are numerous ways in which you can gather customer feedback. One of the most popular is customer satisfaction surveys, which come in a variety of forms befitting their varied purposes. Event-Based Survey The Event-Based Survey facilitates the tracking of trends in satisfaction with current services. They are regular, continual surveys (i.e., a follow-up after a call is closed). They should be short (3-5 questions) and quick and easy to complete. This type of survey is one of the most effective ways to keep a finger on the pulse of customer perception. One-time/One-off Survey The One-time/One-off Survey is not completed at regularly scheduled intervals but undertaken for specific reasons, such as a change in service provider. This survey is a very valuable tool to use after an outage, implementation, out-sourcing or major rollout. Focus Groups A Focus Group is a select group of customers who meet and discuss predetermined issues. Someone from the service desk leads the questioning of the group, taking minutes and reporting the findings back to the team. Periodic/Annual Survey The Periodic/Annual Survey is planned and scheduled on a periodic basis, normally as part of the annual budget cycle. Sometimes they are undertaken 6 monthly or quarterly. They generally examine customer perception of the IT organization and the service desk during the last year or period of time since the last survey of this type was undertaken. Each of these surveys should measure the same elements and allow an organization to trend service improvements year-on-year. 4

5 Creating the Survey There are 6 key stages to tackle before creating a customer satisfaction survey and assessing its effectiveness. 1. Why do we need a survey? The answer may sound obvious but it s worth seriously considering why you actually need to run a customer satisfaction survey. Is customer satisfaction one of your KPIs? Is it a business requirement to attain certain levels of customer feedback or are you genuinely interested in what your customers think about your service desk and the service that you deliver? 2. Who is the survey for? Who do we want to survey and what areas of the business do we want to question? It might be that you only want to gather the opinions of the customers of the service desk or you might want to see what senior management and other areas of the business that do not necessarily use your service desk think. For example, why don t they use the service desk? Do they consider the service desk a core business component? What do they think of your marketing and promotional efforts? 3. What do we want to find out? This guides the construction of your questions, and you ll need to spend time deciding exactly what you want to learn from the survey. The ideal customer satisfaction survey will indicate what customers think about the service you deliver but will also identify clear areas for improvement. There s no point asking a question just for the sake of it you need each question to be meaningful and to really tell you something that you can utilize to improve your services. 4. How will it be distributed? There are now more ways than ever to send out surveys, especially with the rise of social media. For most service desks, will still be the most practical channel, but it s also the most familiar so there is a danger that your s will be ignored. To combat this, you could attach 5

6 a prize or incentive for completing the survey, or for a no-cost solution try creating an enticing subject line like: How would you like to receive better IT support? On clicking through, you can then explain that every single answer provided in the survey will be used to drive service improvements and why customer feedback is so vital. Ensuring that customers feel involved and integrated will help to improve their buy-in into the feedback process. 5. Variety is important. Try to avoid surveying customers in the same way with the same questions. Although changing the questions does mean that it s more difficult to trend the results, adding variety will help keep your surveys fresh and engaging. It s also worth looking at communicating random surveys through social media channels or by creating a pop-up survey on your website. If electronic channels are not yielding the number of responses that you need, then think about courting feedback face-to-face. Floor walking and spending time physically speaking to different areas of the business will reveal some interesting responses, and people are more likely to provide more detail than they would on a normal survey. 6. Monitor the response rate. The biggest question for customer satisfaction surveys is what is a good response rate? The answer will vary widely by the type of industry that you work in (high-pressure businesses like investment banks or stock traders are less likely to fill in surveys), but a good rule of thumb is that 10 percent or higher response to your survey participation request is an excellent return, with around 5 percent being the average. If it s below 5 percent, then it s worth thinking about whether survey fatigue has set in or if the channels used to promote the survey are simply not working anymore. Historical data on return rates will reveal what are the most effective channels and survey types. 6

7 Designing the Survey A common problem with surveys is that respondents tend to tick the same boxes all the way down the list. This is easy to spot, but very annoying when it happens as it calls into question the credibility of the survey and the answers provided. To combat this, it s important to vary the questions and the way that they are answered. If the answer mechanism follows this familiar format all the way through the survey, then it increases the risk that respondents will keep ticking the same box. Using a variety of questions and answer formats (free text, yes/no, check all that apply, etc.) keeps the questions fresh and forces respondents to read the questions more carefully. You ll also want to pay careful attention to how many questions you are asking. Try to keep annual surveys short and succinct (10-20 questions should suffice), and make sure that event surveys are shorter still (about 3 questions is fine). Make sure that you re asking the questions to which you really want to know the answers. People s time is precious so make sure that every question (and the response) counts. Just because other desks ask a question doesn t mean it has any real purpose or focus. All surveys will focus on such basics as courtesy, professionalism and ownership, but there is also scope to extend the question list to look at specific issues. It is important that certain questions remain the same so that they can be trended. But in addition, if you re having problems in certain areas, then it s worth asking questions that touch on those areas to see if customers also perceive the problems. Bear in mind too that different questions should be asked depending on the type of survey and that the questions in focus groups, for example, should be different than those in annual surveys. 7

8 The Key Questions Some of the most popular topics for questioning are: Professionalism Communication Availability Channels for contacting the service desk Ownership Acceptability of resolution times Business knowledge Technical ability of analysts Initiative Responsiveness of staff These questions consistently prove to be the most popular because they provide an assessment of what the service desk delivers (or at least strives to deliver). Thus it is no surprise that the top questions cover the standard customer service requirements of professional and considered communication and making sure that customers are able to contact the service desk when they need to. Interestingly, technical knowledge is often ranked lower than communication skills and channels, indicative of how far the industry has moved from its techie image toward a customer service hub. 8

9 Top Tips for Surveys Avoid Survey Fatigue When thinking about event-based surveys especially if these surveys are triggered each time an incident is closed remember that not all customers will appreciate a satisfaction form every time (especially if they regularly raise incidents with the service desk). It can be useful, therefore, to only surveys to every fourth customer (for example) or for every incident that ends in a certain log number. This way you avoid over surveying your customers, and it s more likely that they will complete the survey accurately. Customers who receive surveys too often are less likely to reply and become frustrated at yet another clogging up their inbox. If the event surveys are rationed, they will receive a more appreciative response. Promotion For a customer satisfaction survey to be successful it needs to reach the widest possible audience, or for focus groups, the right people need to be identified and incentivized to attend. Incentives can take the form of prizes, but they may also take the form of simple actions, such as effectively communicating the value to customers and the business of completing the survey. If they understand the reasoning behind it, then they will be more motivated to complete it. Promotion doesn t stop at motivating people to complete surveys; it must continue after the results of the surveys have been analyzed. It is vital that the results of the survey are disseminated to all interested parties so they can see how well you re performing. Ideally, you would also include historical data so that recipients can see how customer service has changed over time. You ll also want to include action points about how any issues raised in the surveys will be addressed. Trending Collecting customer satisfaction is important, but trending it is vital. Trending data allows you to see any changes over time (both positive and negative) and can feed into a Service Improvement Plan (SIP). Understanding why customer satisfaction levels have changed enables you to see where improvements have been beneficial or whether things were better before or that the changes should be done differently. Data should also always be trended towards a goal. Having goals for customer satisfaction is an important motivational tool to constantly push and strive for better satisfaction levels. If goals are being regularly achieved, then it might be worth extending them if they are not, then it might be worth re-evaluating them and setting them slightly lower. You can also incentivize goals if they are met, then reward the team to keep motivation levels high. 9

10 Service Improvement Customer satisfaction and feedback is a key driver for service improvement. This is why any complaints or feedback should be respected and managed in the right way. For example, a complaint is not necessarily negative as it demonstrates that customers care enough to raise the issue with the service desk. Indeed, if you can engage them in conversation, a complaint provides an ideal opportunity to understand the customer s issue and discuss ways in which the situation can be improved. Any kind of feedback, positive or negative, is vital to elevating service. It helps ensure that the service delivered matches customer expectations. Taking feedback and turning it into improvements is how a good service desk becomes a great service desk. Service desks that respond to customer feedback are proactive and earn the trust of their customers by sharing with them the improvements that they have made. It s a really powerful message to say that X percent told us that we took too long to answer the phone. We ve taken this on board and made changes x, y and z, and now we have slashed call answering times by w. This demonstrates that you are not only being proactive but that you care about what your customers have to say. In turn, this helps build a strong relationship with your customers and will also make them more likely to respond to future surveys as nobody likes filling in a survey only to see no changes or actions. Customer Led and Business Led There is no reason why service desks cannot fulfil their customers expectations and deliver what the business wants and expects from their service desk. The two are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, what the business really wants is for the service desk to deliver exceptional service to its employees or customers. Great service suggests that any customer problems will be dealt with efficiently, which will increase productivity and reduce downtime. Businesses will also want their service desks to provide value for money and customer satisfaction is a great way to demonstrate this. Showing that you re making improvements based on customer feedback highlights how you re receptive to the needs of customers and that you re striving to make improvements that will ultimately benefit the business as a whole. Reducing costs can also be achieved through making such improvements to service as creating self-help portals or using tools like asset management. Again, ideally these initiatives will be driven by customer feedback, demonstrating how customer led and business led are intrinsically connected. 10

11 Conclusion Customers should drive everything we do as service desks, from the range of services and support mechanisms that we offer to the way we answer the phone and respond to s. This has always been true, but perhaps it is more true now than ever. Every day, millions of people make purchases and transactions with shops, supermarkets, and online retailers. There are so many places to buy what we want that competition is fierce, not only on price but on keeping customers happy and satisfied. Treat a customer well and they re much more likely to return and remain loyal. The higher the bar is raised in the retail sector, the higher become customers expectations for the service desk too. How we meet these expectations is a constant challenge we must constantly strive to improve and meet and exceed the demands of our increasingly savvy customers. Good service is no longer adequate; what we are looking for now is exceptional service with the customer at the heart of everything we do. A great way to test the experience you offer to customers is to ask Would you recommend this service desk to a friend or colleague? If your service desk was on situated on the high street and customers were able to choose whichever desk they wanted, what would make yours stand out? What would keep customers coming back and remaining loyal to you? What would make them recommend you and sing your praises? Understanding what makes your service desk great and how it can be improved will continue to increase customer satisfaction levels, a great asset to have in these difficult financial times. 11

12 About The Service Desk Institute (SDI) Founded in 1988 by Howard Kendall, the Service Desk Institute (SDI) is the leading authority on service desk and IT support related issues, providing specialist information and research about the technologies, tools and trends of the industry. SDI is Europe s only support network for IT service desk professionals, and its 800 organization members span numerous industries. Acting as an independent adviser, SDI captures and disseminates creative and innovative ideas for tomorrow's service desk and support operation. SDI sets the best practice standards for the IT support industry and is the conduit for delivering knowledge and career enhancing skills to the professional community, through membership, training, conferences, events and its publication SupportWorld magazine. It also offers the opportunity for international recognition of the support center operation through its globally recognized Service Desk Cert if ication audit program. About Citrix Remote Support Made Easy GoToAssist Corporate is the easy-to-use remote support tool that enables businesses of all sizes to connect with customers online. With GoToAssist Corporate the market leader in remote support solutions you can improve customer service, reduce session times, decrease overall support costs and eliminate time-consuming, expensive travel. IT Management Made Easy GoToAssist is the complete web-based, end-to-end platform for IT managers and consultants. Amaze your clients with fast, secure remote support, and keep critical servers and systems up and running with proactive monitoring and management. Manage everything IT with GoToAssist. To learn more about GoToAssist or GoToAssist Corporate, please visit or call toll-free