Seeking customer feedback
Featured in the Excellent Customer Service training manual
By Susan Iacovou & Caroline Clemie
Category: Customer Service
Credit price: 4 download credits (Single user)
Customers today are better educated than ever before. They know what they want, they look carefully at other options before they purchase, and they are more likely to complain if you don’t meet their expectations. But just what do customers want? It is easy to assume that they want exactly what you are offering to them – after all, they are using your product or service at the moment. This, however, is a dangerous assumption. Your customers may have major concerns about some aspects of what you do and be actively looking for an alternative; your internal customers can find other ways of getting what they need, even if it means circumventing you and your team. The only way of ensuring that you are getting it right is by asking your customers, ‘How are you doing?’ In this training activity, the team re-examine the needs of their customers through the design and implementation of a customer service audit.
You introduce the training activity by explaining why it is important for the team to look for customer feedback on their products and services. The team are introduced to the concept of the customer service audit and talked through the main points to consider when planning such an audit. They then focus on the first component of a customer service audit, the customer survey. They look at the ten rules for effective customer surveys, and assess a sample survey for the Rapid Repair Car Centre against these rules. Next, the team examine the second component of a customer service audit, customer service groups. They think about the rules that should be followed when conducting these groups and discuss them with you. They also familiarise themselves with a sample focus-group structure and have an opportunity to ask questions about the training activity so far. The team look at how to plan their own customer service audit. The need to define the service niches they wish to consider to assess customers’ satisfaction with the service characteristics offered within each niche is emphasised. They are then given a period of time (up to one month) to plan the first three steps of a customer service audit, including the design of customer service surveys. During this time you monitor how they are progressing, and support and assist them where necessary. When the team reconvene, they fine tune their plans, then distribute and analyse the customer survey before meeting with you again to identify the key points arising from the analysis. During this third meeting the team put together a structure for focus groups before going away to run the groups and analyse the information arising from them. When you reconvene for the fourth meeting, they discuss the results of the focus groups and look at the overall conclusions to be reached from the customer service audit as a whole. The team then complete an action plan to address any action areas arising from the audit. Finally, you agree with the team a date, time and place to review their progress against the action plan.
Who is it for: This training resource is intended for use by trainers to help participants learn how to find out what customers want and how they see you.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 4 |
| Max Group Size: | 20 |
| Typical Duration: | 09:35:00 |
| No of Pages: | 44 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Purpose: This training resource is intended for use by trainers as an integral part of the process of introducing a customer service culture in the team, but it can also be used on its own when your team want to find out how satisfied their customers are with their service or product.
Download the training activity, Seeking customer feedback as featured in the Fenman training manual; Excellent Customer Service