Free Customer Satisfaction Survey Forms

A Customer Satisfaction Survey Form is an essential questionnaire form that seeks to help businesses and organizations to understand their customers’ thoughts and feedback with regard to the products or services they offer.

The questionnaire targets to help businesses to have an understanding of how positively their customers think of the brand they sell and the customer support they have.

When a business creates products or services, they focus on what is best for their customers. Organizations target to solve any problems or provide what their customers need. That means that a business must put into consideration their customers’ experiences when they purchase their products and services. A satisfied customer is bound to return and even attract other customers in the process.

With this in mind, a business should therefore prepare customer satisfaction survey forms and distribute these forms among their customers to review their satisfaction levels. With customer satisfaction survey forms, businesses can be able to gather information about their customers, how they view their products or services and if they are satisfied with the business as a whole.

Since the key objective of a company creating products or providing services is to generate as much revenue through them as possible, businesses and organizations must understand that it is necessary to have satisfied customers. A customer would wish to purchase a product or access service and find it to satisfy their requirement in a manner such that it proves to be exactly what they were looking for. In order to analyze whether the company is able to attain that level of customer satisfaction customer survey through a customer survey form is significantly essential.

Here is a list of why a customer satisfaction survey is important for any business or organization:

• Customer satisfaction surveys are important when it comes to keeping track and measuring customer satisfaction. It offers a better way of recording customer satisfaction as compared to the informal way of a business owner conversing with their customers verbally.
• A customer satisfaction survey helps to highlight which area of the business, product or service requires to be improved according to the answers the customers will provide on the survey forms. In this way, the customer satisfaction survey helps a business to attain returning customers as business that is aware of what their customers require can keep them for longer and even attract additional customers by offering them products or services that satisfy their requirements.
• A business that is aware of its strengths and weaknesses due to customer feedback through the survey forms is also more credible to compete against its customers in an efficient manner and attempt to succeed in the market comparatively.

As much as it is essential for a business or the organization to find out if their customers are satisfied and what more can be done to please and retain them, most businesses do not know how to. There are six steps that businesses can follow when it comes to a customer satisfaction survey.

Here is a breakdown of the step by step guide on how to conduct a customer satisfaction survey:

Determining what should be measured

A business must determine what should be measured before the survey begins. For a business or organization to understand their customers’ satisfaction level, there are parameters that they should consider to make the process effective. Issues like what the customers think about the company and how they feel the company is doing are examples of what should be measured to determine customer satisfaction.

Some of the essential considerations that the company should keep in mind while determining the right product for the survey may include how long the customers have been using the product and what they would do to improve the product. Such measuring parameters will help to determine their satisfaction level.

Choosing the right type of customer satisfaction survey method

A business owner should then choose the type of survey method and pertinent form that they will use to conduct the customer satisfaction programs. There are different types of survey forms that can be used to conduct a customer satisfaction survey.

These types are categorized such:

As per purpose

These types of surveys offer information about how happy, loyal, and satisfied the customers are with the products or services from an organization or business. These surveys include Customer Satisfaction Score, Net Promoter Score, Customer Effort Score, and Milestone surveys.

Customer satisfaction score survey

Customer satisfaction score surveys target to understand if the product or service offered accomplished its intention. The survey expects a customer to score the level of satisfaction they feel about a certain product or service.

For example:

Did our product serve its purpose?
Were our services beneficial to you?

Net promoter score survey

For net promoter surveys, customers are also needed to rate or score how likely they are to recommend other customers for the products or services they accessed from a particular organization.

For example:

Would you recommend others to use our products?
What changes would you like us to make to improve our services?

Customer effort score survey

Customer effort score surveys focus on the efficiency of customer support being offered by an organization. It helps to determine whether or not an issue that the customer had was fixed and how fast the process was.

For example:

How easy was it to resolve the issue you had with our product?
How easy did we make it for you to access our services?

Milestone surveys

For milestone surveys, the business owners target to understand the customers’ key moments that highlight their experience when it comes to the business. This helps businesses or organizations to understand the customer’s experience better and how to improve it.

For example:

Will hiring more staff to improve the way we offer our services?
Did you experience any delays while waiting for our products to be delivered?

As per response

These surveys focus on the type of questions that have been crafted in the questionnaire for the survey. The questions shape the responses hence the category of these surveys.

They include:

Multiple-choice questions

For multiple-choice questions, the survey limits the responses that the customers give. The customers can quickly complete these questions and provide the information that the business is looking for since this method narrows down the survey. The responses or results from these questions are also easier to record and analyze.

Examples of multiple-choice questions include:

• Rating scale questions
• Binary scale questions
• Binary questions
• Likert scale questions
• Semantic differential questions.

Open-ended questions

For open-ended questions, the survey allows the customers to provide in-depth information about their experience and satisfaction level. This freedom given to customers is helpful. This is because, a simple survey enables the company to gather and collect more ideas and information from their customers, which helps them to identify new opportunities for the business related to improving the products or services.  

Determining who to interview

The third step is to determine which customers will be interviewed for the customer satisfaction survey. Different customers consume different products or services. This, however, does not mean that they all qualify for a review to determine customer satisfaction. Businesses must decide which types of customers are fit to be surveyed for the benefit of the business.

Candidates fit for this survey include the traditional first-in-line customer (if the business is dealing with direct customers) and channel customers like wholesalers (if the business is dealing with intermediaries). Also, other candidates fit for this survey include both walk-in customers and also online customers since they receive their products or services through different channels.

Other suitable candidates fit to be interviewed are lapsed customers who are likely to offer information about service issues while potential customers will provide useful information about the business’s competition.

Note: Lapsed customers are those customers who purchased products or services for a while then stopped abruptly and have not returned.

Demographics help to classify customers into relatable groups where the business can extract the most honest answers from their customers. There are essential and contributing demographical factors that businesses can consider when selecting the most appropriate customers for the survey.

A business should consider the customer’s age, location, ‘gender, current employment status, marital status, and if they have children. Other demographical factors that are also important include the customer’s level of education, their approximate annual household income, the industry they are in, and their place of work plus their job title.

These factors will help to create questions for the customers. The business does not have to request answers for all the questions but can give directions about the questions to keep and choose to omit. This way, the business is guaranteed honest answers and valid information from their customers.

How the survey should be carried out

There are different methods and tools that can be used to carry out the survey. For the fourth step, a business should consider which survey would work best. These methods of the survey include face-to-face interviews, online/ e-mail surveys, survey forms, and even telephone interviews.

Face-to-face interviews allow for good, clear, and in-depth responses. They can, however, be hectic, expensive, and time-consuming. Online surveys are affordable, easy to conduct, and can be fast to execute if dealing with a large group of customers. Telephone interviews are low-cost and offer a quick turnaround of fieldwork.

The best way to distribute the survey depends on how the survey is being carried out. For face-to-face interviews, such surveys should be distributed among key customers, where the customers are in a tightly accessible geographical area and in the case that the subject at hand is lengthy.

For online or email surveys, they are distributed among customers who share a strong relationship with the company and the subject (that is, the product or service).

For telephone interviews, they are preferred for most businesses when conducting a customer satisfaction survey since this method is easy and effective, especially when proper staff is involved.

Define measurements

After the survey has been carried out, the next step is to gather the responses. The business should ensure that they collect the responses from the customer satisfaction survey form appropriately since the information gathered will guide their future decision. The scores can be gathered in a way that determines the customers’ loyalty to the products or services the business is offering and also to determine its performance.

This can be achieved by defining the measurements that were being reviewed by the questions in the customer satisfaction survey form. With this, the business or organization can then calculate the mean or average of the scores.

Conclude the results  

The average score realized from a survey form is used to determine the weaknesses and strengths surrounding the business that affect customers’ satisfaction.

For example:

In the case of a multiple-choice question, if the score is out of ten, an eight means that the business is a great supplier and the customers are satisfied, seven to eight means that their satisfaction is adequate, and below seven means that some changes need to be made to increase customer satisfaction. 

Here are some tips that a business or organization can observe when conducting a survey:

Choose the right survey tool

A business or organization must select the right survey tool for them to get the required feedback. The best survey tool, for example, a customer satisfaction score, is one that accommodates different types of questions and responses to allow for proper score measurement.

Ask short and appropriate survey questions

Customers will not appreciate lengthy and tiring questions in the questionnaire form of the customer satisfaction survey. It is best to keep them concise and straight to the point. This will increase the chances of the customers completing the survey.

Send the surveys at the appropriate time

Sending a customer satisfaction survey to a new customer or a customer who stopped accessing the business’s products or services will not be helpful for the survey process. A business or organization should send out surveys at the correct time of the customer’s journey to access the needed information.

When to send?  -A survey is best sent after a period of interaction with the customer. For new customers, a survey can be sent after a few weeks of interaction. For ongoing customers, it is best to have this survey every few times in the year.

Importantly: It is also best to send surveys within the first 24hrs after the customer has had any experience with the company’s product or services. This ensures that the business can get a more honest and vivid answer from their customers.

Have A/B test for the surveys

Conducting the A/B testing is the best way for a business to test if the customer satisfaction survey will be effective. A/B testing is also known as spilled testing; it is experimentation were two versions of a survey are produced and tested to determine which version will work best.

An effective A/B test is effective if the two versions have minimal differences as this will help a business to use the most appropriate form for their customer satisfaction survey. The A/B test will produce the best results if these changes to the survey occur at a minimal level and the business keeps track of the difference.

Thank the customers for their response

Customers who agreed to participate in the satisfaction survey ought to be thanked after they offer their responses. A business or organization can do this by offering discounts, sending emails, and even using a gift card. Thanking the customers should be done regardless of their responses. This makes the customers feel appreciated and will attract them to come back to purchase the products or services.

Following are some free downloadable customer satisfaction survey templates for you:

Customer satisfaction survey forms- by type

Conducting a customer satisfaction survey is an essential part of the success of a business but there are certain methods and techniques along with the basics that must be observed and utilized in the process for further enhancement of results attained in the end. Such things include the customer satisfaction survey form and other guidelines provided in this guide for your ease.