There are all sorts of customer satisfaction data. A lot of it involves answers and suggestions from questionnaires, survey forms, and comment cards. Some of them are from telephone calls to a company’s hotline numbers. Even company web sites provide a venue for customers and visitors to pose their suggestions, criticisms, and compliments through a comment box, usually located at the bottom of the page. Even a one-word answer to the question, “How do you like our product?” can be a type of customer satisfaction data already.
The customer satisfaction data is gathered and analyzed in order to help a company be more customer-oriented and possibly raise profits. Probably the most common type of customer satisfaction data is that obtained from survey forms. In a restaurant, for example, customers will be given a piece of paper with several questions written on it, such as “What can you suggest to help improve our service?” or “What food did you enjoy the most, and why?" After he has eaten, the customer will then answer the questions based on his dining experience.
Questionnaires may contain written words as answers, but they can also contain numerical figures that can rate how satisfied a customer is with the products or services he has received. Surveys can employ tools such as the Likert scale wherein customers can choose from numbers one through five to answer questions. Should customers choose five, it can mean they are “very dissatisfied,” but choosing five may mean they are “very satisfied.” Companies and businesses sometimes prefer numerical customer satisfaction data because it is more accurate and very easy to gather and interpret through pie charts and bar graphs.
Customer satisfaction data can also be obtained through telephone calls, in which companies provide telephone numbers that customers can call. Gathered data from phone calls is usually about complaints and criticisms about a product. Sometimes, the company itself initiates and regularly phones customers and makes inquiries about their experience with a product or a service. In appreciation of their time and suggestions, the company can give freebies to the caller and give discounts on some products.
Many people are sometimes wary and hesitant to give out some comments, especially when they are somewhat negative. This is why feedback from casual conversations is one form of gathering customer satisfaction data that is easiest to obtain, not to mention covert. Employees need only strike up a conversation by casually asking some questions, and customers can feel comfortable in saying anything they want.