The Strange Effect of Surveys on Consumer Behavior

The survey equation seems simple.

You ask a customer a few questions. Their answers help you spot problems. You then use their feedback to improve. If all goes well, customers become more loyal and sales go up.

It's applying feedback that's been a sticking point. Many companies don't. One study suggests that only 10 percent of companies use survey data to improve service.

It turns out that a survey has influence, even if you don't use the data.

A 2002 study published in the Journal of Consumer Research determined that the mere act of surveying customers increased sales and loyalty. Here's a summary of what the study's authors found.

The Study

The research was conducted by Utpal M. Dholakia and Vicki G. Morwitz. They separated customers at a financial services firm into a test and control group. The test group took a customer satisfaction survey while the control group did not.

Dholakia and Morwitz then used actual customer transactions to identify any differences between the customers who were surveyed and those who were not.

 

The Results

Two conclusions jumped out.

First, the surveyed customers were much more likely to open new accounts with the financial services firm.

Second, the surveyed customers were much less likely to defect. 

The Implications

It would be a mistake to just assume you can launch a survey and watch sales soar. 

There's a bit of nuance here. For example, the study was conducted in 2002 when surveys weren't nearly as constant as they are now. It's entirely possible the study would see different results if it was conducted today.

My guess is the survey itself isn't what's driving consumer behavior. My hypothesis is there are two parts of the survey that are really making the impact.

The first is the act of story telling. 

Customers relive their experiences when they complete a survey. Retelling their story through a survey can make strong feelings (good or bad) even stronger. And, like so many stories, the details change and become exaggerated over time to create a stronger narrative.

The second part is a survey can demonstrate that a company actually cares.

It was probably easier to do that in 2002 when surveys were less common than they are in 2015. The big take away should be that if companies can show customers they care then customers will likely reward them.

How to Choose the Right Type of Customer Service Survey

Updated: June 12, 2023

Customer service surveys are confusing. There's an alphabet soup of options available to companies who want to survey their customers.

  • Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

  • Net Promoter Score (NPS)

  • Customer Effort Score (CES)

They all have their proponents and detractors. It's tough to figure out what to do.

Here’s an overview of each survey type along with a real case study where it’s effective. You’ll also see a short video overview of the three major survey types.

Do this before you select a survey type

There is one step you must complete before you decide what type of survey to use. Decide why you want to gather feedback from your customers and what you plan to do with it.

Here are four examples of organizations with different survey goals.

  • Software company: improve customer interactions with technical support.

  • Nonprofit organization: increase loyalty from annual donors.

  • Equipment manufacturer: reduce friction for employees needing help from IT.

  • Financial services: identify top problems faced by 30 biggest clients.

Each of these organizations have very different needs. Keep reading to learn what type of survey I recommended for each one.

What is a Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) survey?

A customer satisfaction, or CSAT, survey asks customers to rate their level of satisfaction with a product, service, or experience.

This is a versatile survey that can be used in many situations. You can use this survey to identify problems that frustrate customers and pinpoint factors that make your customers happy. If you aren’t sure what type of survey to use, go with a CSAT survey.

One downside is the CSAT survey has weakest connection to customer behaviors like loyalty. Other survey types can be more effective if you want to focus on something specific like revenue growth.

Recommendation: I suggested the software company use a CSAT survey to improve interactions with technical support. A CSAT rating combined with a comment field would allow the technical support team to quickly identify trends that made customers happy or frustrated.

What is a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey?

A Net Promoter Score, or NPS, survey focuses on a customer's likelihood to recommend your product, service, or company to others.

NPS surveys ask customers to rate how likely they are to recommend a company using a scale of one to 10. Here’s an example Suunto sent me after I registered a new hiking watch on their website.

The responses are then divided into three groups, based on their rating:

  • Promoters: 9-10

  • Passives: 7-8

  • Detractors: 0-6

The Net Promoter Score is calculated by subtracting the detractors from the promoters.

Imagine 100 people take the survey, and there are 60 promoters, 30 passives, and 10 detractors. The Net Promoter Score for the survey would be 50:

60 promoters - 10 detractors = 50

The score takes into account the people who really like you and the people who don't. The people in the middle, the passives, aren't counted in the overall score, although their feedback is still important.

NPS is a useful survey type if your primary goal is revenue growth. It helps you pinpoint what factors make customers so happy with your business that they’re willing to recommend you to others.

One con is the NPS has a very narrow focus. It's not really useful unless your goal is to gain more referrals.

Recommendation: I suggested the nonprofit use NPS to survey donors once per year. Most donors made an annual contribution, so the survey could be timed about six months after the anniversary date of their donation. The results could provide a number of useful insights:

  • Identify dissatisfied donors so the relationship could be saved.

  • Determine what groups of donors were more likely to refer others to donate as well.

  • Discover trends to help increase the overall number and value of donations.

What is a Customer Effort Score (CES) survey?

A Customer Effort Score (CES) survey looks at how easy it is to resolve a customer service issue.

Customers are typically asked how easy it was to resolve their issue. The question has a seven-point rating scale that ranges from 1 (not very easy) to 7 (very easy).

Research has shown that the results can be a strong indicator of customer loyalty.

A CES survey can also help you find ways to serve your customers more efficiently. High effort is often associated with repeat contacts, chronic problems, and inefficient processes.

Like CSAT and NPS surveys, customer effort score surveys have a few pros and cons.

Pros include helping you fix problems, and identify wasteful procedures. Making things easier for your customers is also shown to drive increased loyalty.

Some cons are that the CES is transactional, so it might not work if your goal is to conduct a relationship survey. It also has a narrow focus, so this may not be the best survey for examining broader issues.

Recommendation: I suggested the manufacturer’s IT Director use a CES survey to evaluate IT interactions. He had been using an NPS survey, but this wasn’t the most appropriate tool since his customers were internal employees. His ultimate goal was reducing friction, which is exactly what a CES survey targets.

When should you avoid using a survey?

You should not survey your customers if there are more effective ways to get feedback.

Recommendation: I recommended the financial services company eliminate its customer service (CSAT) survey. The company had approximately 3,000 customers, but the bulk of its revenue came from 30 key clients.

The operations manager told me these clients were the ones he really want to get feedback from. In particular, he wanted to understand the top problems faced by these 30 clients so they could improve their service.

The manager could easily call all 30 clients to get their feedback directly. These conversations would reveal detailed information and feedback that a survey might not capture. And, they’d have the added benefit of helping the manager build a stronger personal relationship with each one.

Asking customers directly is one of several ways you can can capture customer feedback without using a survey.

Take Action

It’s important to choose the right survey for your specific goal. Start by deciding why you want to gather feedback from your customers and what you plan to do with that data.

You can find more ideas on my new customer service survey resource page.

This short video explains provides more details about each survey type.

New Report: Contact Centers Fall Short on Surveys

Contact centers struggle to use customer service survey data.

That's the conclusion suggested by a new report from ICMI called Collapse of the Cost Center: Driving Contact Center Profitability. The report, sponsored by Zendesk, focuses on ways that contact centers can add value to their organizations. 

Collecting customer feedback is one way contact centers can add value. This feedback can be used to retain customers, improve customer satisfaction, identify product defects, and increase sales.

So, what's the struggle? Here's a statistic that immediately caught my attention:

63% of contact centers do not have a formal voice of the customer program.

Yikes! It's hard to use your contact center as a strategic listening post if you aren't listening.

Let's take a look at some of the report's findings along with some solutions.

Key Survey Stats

Here are some selected statistics from the report.

First, let's look at the types of surveys used by contact centers that do have a formal voice of the customer (VOC) program:

Source: ICMI

Source: ICMI

Customer Effort Score (CES) presents an untapped opportunity. 

CES measures customers' perceived effort (see this overview). A good CES program will help companies identify things that annoy customers and create waste. This makes it a great metric for improving efficiency.

Why is efficiency so important in a customer-focused world? Here's another statistic from the ICMI report that explains it:

62% of organizations view their contact center as a cost center.

That means efficiency is one of the most important success indicators for those companies' executives. CES marries cost control and service quality by measuring efficiency from the customer's point of view.

Another revealing statistic shows what's not measured:

44% of contact centers don't measure customer retention

Keeping customers should be the name of the game for contact centers. If you don't measure this statistic, than customer retention can't be a priority.

 

Challenges With Surveys

The report highlighted challenges contact centers face with survey data. Here are the top five:

Challenge #1: Using survey data to improve service. Survey data is more than just a score. The key is analyzing the data to get actionable insight. That's a skill that many customer service leaders don't have. One resource is this step-by-step guide to analyzing survey data.

Challenge #2: Getting a decent response rate. Response rate is a misleading statistic. There are two things that are far more important. First, does your survey fairly represent your customer base? Second, is your survey yielding actionable data? Your response rate is irrelevant if you can confidently say "Yes" to these questions.

Challenge #3: Analyzing data. See challenge #1. You can't improve service if you don't analyze your data to determine what needs to be improved.

Challenge #4: Designing effective surveys. Survey design is another skill that many customer service leaders don't have. Here's a training video on lynda.com that provides everything you need to get started. You'll need a lynda.com account to take the full course, but you can get a 10-day trial here.

Challenge #5: Taking action to help dissatisfied customers. You'll need a closed loop survey to tackle this challenge. A closed loop survey allows customers to opt in for a follow-up contact. Once you add this, it becomes very easy to initiate a program to follow-up with upset customers.

 

Additional Resources

The full report provides a lot more data and advice on leveraging contact centers to improve customer service and profits. It's available for purchase on the ICMI website.

Here are some additional blog posts that can also help: