Stop the Survey Madness: Three CX Mistakes Costing Trust

Too many surveys, not enough action. Here’s where leaders go wrong and how to break the cycle of bad data and wasted trust.

When was the last time you received a survey from a product or service provider and completed it? And I mean really completed it.

My confession: While I’ve been in this field for 25+ years, I rarely do them anymore myself. Several years ago, I would only complete them to see how bad (or good?) they were. Now, I hate to say it, but I am done.

Why? 

• I’m exhausted! We, as consumers, are tired. There is a firehose of content flooding social media and email accounts. We are dealing with fraudulent text messages, and surveys are only competing with this overflow. Surveys are, in many cases, just bad (you can see and smell them right away!)
• I know my feedback won’t be used for anything good! I’m 95% sure that even if I complete it, nobody is going to do anything with my feedback, so why should I take the time to do it. Oh, and I’ll likely never know how or if it’s being used. So why should I?

Not trying to make enemies of the great research and experience, but I’d like to flush things out and maybe even drum up some healthy debate on the topic. 

Here are three big mistakes that business and customer experience leaders make and a few tips on how to avoid making them.  

MISTAKE #1 SURVEY PARALYSIS WITH NO ACTION: 

Some organisations have developed and used very well-designed surveys that are very effective in survey terms. It’s a shame that many do not use them for much. When you ask how the surveys are being used or what types of actions and results come from the feedback gathered, you’ll hear crickets or maybe something like “we have a xx NPS” or “xx% satisfaction” but rarely hear anything tangible that is being done with all the data.

In my past professional life, we did use survey data to drive training, development and coaching of sales and service reps, and in some cases, we were able to close the loop going back to customers, but with the current survey and content culture we are dealing with, this is just not as productive and certainly not going to be sustainable. 

Important note: Some organisations use surveys as required to operate, i.e., hospitals get penalised or bonused with Medicare reimbursements based on patient satisfaction and other quality ratings. Can’t take that away, nor do we want to as this is forcing the issue to improve patient care. I get that, but that is not the case with so many survey applications.

So ask yourself: How are we (my organisation) using this survey data? What are the tangible results? Unless you have specific actions that are based on the data and they tie to improvements and business results, I suggest you pull the plug, stop pushing surveys out that will only bug your customers (and potentially erode any remaining trust) and shift that money over to more cost-effective and profitable activities. 

MISTAKE #2 SURVEYS ARE THE HOLY GRAIL: 

If you rely only on surveys to manage the experience you offer, you will likely end up taking guesses and not making the best investments. Even the large VOC vendors such as Qualtrics and Medallia are saying that response rates are at an all time low and will likely continue to decrease. 

Not only are response rates going down but also completion rates are low, so companies stick the NPS (recommendation) question out first to ensure they get at least some responses. This is another pet peeve of mine. I know big brand vendors believe in this but as a customer, that is the last thing I want to be asked if I had a problem I was trying to solve. And as I said, we are exhausted! None of this should be a surprise to anyone in this field of work. 

There are other ways to capture feedback on the customer experience, save some money, drive internal team collaboration and use your data and analysis to drive real action and results. With clients, I always recommend asking your internal front-line employees –this is a GREAT place to start. It is much less expensive and time-consuming than doing surveys, and provides current data PLUS the bonus is it creates a nice level of employee engagement. 

So ask yourself: Are we engaging our internal cross-functional front-line team of professionals to capture the customer perspective? These employees communicate on a daily basis with customers and know what is going well and not well. Including these teams and other support teams, you can gather first-hand feedback. Then you can share/review any additional data and analysis with this cross-functional team, and work together to create and align on potential actions. You will ALWAYS find a wealth of data and juicy nuggets (I promise!) to help create solutions for customers’ problems and design or re-design some great experiences. 

In doing this, we normally find that employees are very happy to provide this feedback, to simply be listened to and engaged in finding solutions. It is truly a win-win-win for customers, employees (your internal customers) and for the organisation.

MISTAKE #3 NOT FULLY UTILISING YOUR QUALITATIVE DATA:

If you are not fully utilising your qualitative data from surveys, panels, interviews, call records, digital channels and social media, you are completely missing the boat. 

Qualitative data can provide even greater and deeper insights that can guide teams to take actions that are most important for change and positive results. Analysing qualitative and sentiment data is much more effective, actionable and productive than just talking numbers. You can use this to prioritise investments and actions across the organisation to enhance the experience provided AND provide greater bottom-line results. 

So ask yourself: Are we analysing and fully utilising the qualitative data that we have from customers? Open up all the “digital drawers” you have from a variety of sources and methodologies and start analysing.