The Key Secret and 7 Crucial Client Survey Actions
It’s that time of year when client surveys are most popular. Successful business owners and leaders know the importance of gathering client feedback and input as well as the benefits: increased EBITDA, higher client retention, clear assessment of client risk, and identification of cross-selling opportunities.
There is also the difficulty many businesses face in 2020 and understanding the pandemic's impact on their customers’ business makes client surveys even more crucial. New questions added to Butler Street's survey recently were designed to capture the outlook on the relationship compared to pre-COVID levels.
Fast forward to after the survey is completed. You know how loyal your customers are and whether they believe their business with you will grow, be about the same, or decline. You now have feedback on what you can do to be a better partner!
To obtain valuable feedback from your clients and to maximize the ROI of a client survey, take these 7 crucial actions:
1. Refresh Client Data
People change, perhaps retire or move companies. New people get hired. The single most important factor in getting a good response rate on a client survey is starting with current, active contacts and making sure you have valid email addresses for them. Leverage the time to make sure the system is up to date, and you'll have a higher quality list to use for other communications too.
2. Request Feedback in the Upcoming Survey
By sending an introduction message before a survey is sent, it lets your client know their feedback is important to you and to be on the lookout for an email to respond to the survey. This makes it more likely for them to respond than if they just received an email with a link to take a survey and increases the response rate.
3. Respond to detractors within 24 hours
You'll want to thank everyone for taking the survey, and anyone who rates a 6 or below (a detractor) should be handled quickly.
Treat their feedback like gold bricks, develop action plans to solve, take action, and close the loop.
Thank them once again for helping to make your company better.
4. Incorporate with financial segmentation
By merging NPS results with a 3x3 financial segmentation, you can understand how much revenue and respective margins are in each category. This identifies which accounts to protect, which are the most at risk, and which accounts are ripe for developing.
5. Develop referrals
Referrals are great for prospecting but are difficult to obtain if the sales team is not in the habit of asking for them. According to LinkedIn,
84% of B2B begin their purchasing process with a referral.
With the feedback captured along with permission to use the feedback as a testimonial, client survey results make it easy to have a dataset ripe for developing for more referrals.
6. Recognize team members
Recognized behavior gets repeated; unrecognized behaviors do not. Clients will specifically call out who has gone above and beyond in their eyes and let you know how your teams are positively impacting their business. The impact of exceptional service from a specific individual can be shared immediately.
7. Leverage the resulting data/analytics for strategic planning
More than 90% of survey responses on average contain additional insights on why the specific rating provided was chosen.
Even promoters can indicate current or future unmet needs. With facts and data, you can develop the right strategies for each account (protect, grow, expand, etc.) for your business and leverage for budgeting and planning purposes.
Because the basis of a Net Promoter Score® survey is a question that is simple to ask, simple to answer, and captures the customer’s entire experience, it is known as the leading indicator of future revenue. (visit our members only resources for sample NPS report, NPS infographic, and more info) Everyone loves reading the fantastic comments about the great service and strong relationships! And sure, there will be some comments about how the pricing could be lower or how there was a problem or hiccup here or there.
The secret to maximizing ROI and driving profitable growth is… Taking Action!
Organizations that took action on feedback received through Net Promoter surveys increased client retention by 11%.
Contact us today to schedule an NPS survey and let Butler Street be your guide to leveraging the survey to help drive your profitable growth. For companies in the print and print-related industries, registration for the 2021 Best of Print & Digital program is open through November 6th.