We examined the point-of-purchase surveys for 51 of the largest US retailers, finding that retailers like Nordstrom and Wal-Mart waste customers’ time—and their own—with critically flawed satisfaction surveys.
The two biggest problems:
- Biased questions.
- A failure to engage customers and show customer listening.
Based on an objective evaluation of 15 survey elements, on average, the surveys scored a 43, a clear F grade.
Other findings include:
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- With an average of 23 questions, the surveys were excessively long.
- 32% of all questions were leading.
- 7-Eleven had the best survey—it was 13 questions, none of which were leading or used biased wording.
- Nordstrom, the retailer most known for customer service, stated its survey would take 2 minutes—but with 25 questions, it took 4-5 minutes.
To get real value from their point-of-purchase surveys, retailers need to:
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- Strengthen their survey science
- Take a creative approach to showing customers their feedback matters.
Since the nation’s largest retailers are producing shockingly flawed surveys, the findings from this study should be considered by all companies that use customer satisfaction surveys.
The retailers selected for this study were the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) largest retailers, omitting supermarkets and membership stores. The surveys were collected between June 23 and July 27, 2016.