#Customer surveys

Do things that don't scale

In the first years of Airbnb, when their number of users was low and primarily located in New York, an investor gave co-founder Brian Chesky this advice: “Go to your users. Get to know them.” Brian’s response was, “But that won’t scale. If we’re huge and we have millions of customers, we can’t meet every customer.” The investor replied, “That’s exactly why you should do it now because this is the only time you’ll ever be small enough that you can meet all your customers, get to know them, and make something directly for them.”

With that advice, founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia flew to New York. They went to every host’s house, asking to meet and interview them and sometimes even staying with them. They also went door-to-door signing people up, hosted meet-ups, and approached people wherever they could to tell them how to monetize their apartments. During these conversations, the founders also observed how hosts used the Airbnb website. Each week, they would incorporate any feedback they received which led to breakthrough insights, like:

• How to educate users on uploading and taking professional photos for their properties
• Which profile details would make hosts more comfortable in allowing guests to stay with them
• What makes a great user experience when it comes to customer support

Ask users about the product of their dreams

At the beginning of Airbnb, co-founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia would sit down personally with customers to understand how they could improve their business. However, they didn't ask about the product that they had already built. They found that by asking questions like, 'What can I do to make this product better?' they received small, uninspiring answers.

To gain the most insightful feedback, they asked about the product of their customers' dreams, with questions like:

• What can we do to surprise you?
• What can we do, not to make this better, but to make you tell everyone about it?

Avoid focus groups, consultants, and market research

Imagine if the first iPhone had a stylus and a retractable keyboard? That's what Apple believes would have happened if they relied on focus groups to inform the design. To Apple, customers don't innovate, they only iterate what they have seen before. So people actually don't know what they want until you show it to them.

But this doesn't mean to stop listening to customers. Instead know your customers so well that you know what they want before they realize it themselves.

Measure engagement, not satisfaction

High satisfaction scores only tell you if customers are happy, not if they are loyal to your brand. So, The Ritz-Carlton began measuring customer engagement with Gallup's CE11 survey and employee engagement with Gallup's Q12 survey. By measuring both employee and customer engagement holistically, which Gallup refers to as HumanSigma, The Ritz-Carlton started to see the direct effect that employee engagement had on the customer experience.

Measure the quality of your service

To prove to themselves that they are continually improving in service, Umpqua Bank began measuring customer and staff service quality. The scores are calculated each month, teams are ranked, and the results are posted for everyone.

The goal is to reward team performance, not individual accomplishment. The winning store and department both receive a crystal trophy that they proudly display until it moves on to the next winner the following month. Any store or department that ranks poorly for some time is asked to develop an improvement plan and then is held accountable for implementing it.

Store Return on Quality (ROQ) Measurements

• Sales Effective Ratio (SER) measures the average number of bank products and services sold to new customers at each sales session.
• Customer Account Retention measures the number of deposits closed as a percentage of all accounts.
• Customer Service Surveys measure the quality of service that customers receive.
• New Account Surveys measure the average score of new account holders.
• Telephone Shopping Reports are done three times per month by outside vendors. They measure whether the phones are answered correctly and if the associate asks if the customer needs additional information.
• New Deposit & Loan Accounts / Full-time Equivalent measures the total number of deposits and loans divided by the number of employees working in the store.

Department Return on Quality Measurements

Departments at Umpqua each have developed service-level agreements (SLA) with one another. These agreements include standards such as turnaround time. Every associate who interacts with a specific department provides both positive and negative feedback to that department with an SLA survey.

Measure service with Net Promoter Score (NPS)

After any order or after certain customer interactions, Zappos sends out email surveys to these customers in order to help calculate their Net Promoter Score and learn more about the experiences the customers received. Questions have included:

• On a scale of 0 to 10, 10 being the highest score, how likely are you to recommend Zappos to a friend or a family member?
• If you had to name one thing that we could improve upon, what would that be?
• During your last interaction with us, you contacted a member of our Customer Loyalty Team. On a scale of 0 to 10, if you had your own company that was focused upon service, how likely would you be to hire this person to work for you?
• Overall, would you describe the service you received from [team member name] as good, bad, or fantastic?
• What exactly stood out as being good or bad about this service?

Results are then calculated each day and shared with the entire company. Each team member also receives their own individual scores for the calls they specifically handled.

Share WOW stories by soliciting customer feedback

As part of the Sharing Great Calls program at Zappos, team members are encouraged to let their leaders know when they have made a strong personal connection with customers. The leader will then email or call the customer directly to receive additional feedback on the experience.

Zappos receives over 100 Sharing Great Calls examples every week and posts them on the company intranet and also uses them for quality feedback and training purposes.

And in case you're not sure how to approach a customer for feedback, the Zappos message sounds something like this:

"Our Team Member said what a great time she had talking to you! We want to give our Team Members an extra pat on the back, so I have a huge favor to ask of you. It will not take much of your time, but it will help us enormously. Please tell us about the service you received and any points of feedback regarding the conversation you had with our Team Member. "