It seems that we’re asked to take a customer satisfaction survey with nearly every purchase. But do you ever wonder…do they really care what I have to say?

Our 2016 Customer Listening Study, the first of its kind, evaluated the customer satisfaction surveys of 51 top US retailers. The main finding: retailers like Lowe’s and Wal-Mart waste customers’ time—and their own—with critically flawed surveys. No company was completely scientific in its approach; nor did any company fully connect with customers in a thoughtful, compelling way.

Yet retailers issue millions of customer satisfaction surveys daily—which begs the question of whether these surveys are worth the paper they’re written on. To find out, we objectively evaluated 15 survey elements, in areas such as information quality, customer engagement, and branding cues.

The average survey quality score was 43—an F grade. We found two main problems with the surveys:

    • They collected largely inaccurate data.
    • And failed to demonstrate active customer listening.

We also found that:

    • With 23 questions on average, the surveys were excessively long.
    • 32% of all questions lead customers to give answers that companies want to hear.
    • 7-Eleven had the best survey—it was 13 questions, none of which were leading or used biased wording.
    • Family Dollar had the worst survey—it had 69 questions, 29 of which were leading.
    • Nordstrom, the most known for customer service, stated its survey would take 2 minutes—but with 25 questions, it took 4-5 minutes.

This study highlights how easy it is to produce a flawed survey. The findings should be considered by any company with a customer listening program.

To get more value from their customer satisfaction surveys, retailers should apply a scientific methodology, and be sure to connect with customers to show they’re listening.

The retailers selected for the 2016 Customer Listening Study were the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) top retailers, omitting supermarkets and membership stores. Surveys were collected between June 23 and July 27, 2016.

Have a question about the Customer Listening Study, or want to learn about designing an intelligent customer satisfaction survey? Drop us a line.

Categories: Interaction Metrics News
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