Recently, during a flight I decided to answer a survey by the airline that came on as the movie I was watching ended. Truth be told, I like answering surveys once in a while – you have to do your bit to get better customer service, don’t you – but I abandon some surveys because they are too long or the questions seem repetitive or illogical. This survey too began to bore me for similar reasons but I finished it anyway.

This set me thinking – how easy is it for companies to get customer feedback? And is there such a thing as good feedback vs bad feedback, in terms of its utility? Would giving customers incentives result in companies getting more of it?

Act on the feedback

HG Raghunath, CEO, Watches & Accessories Division, Titan Company, says, “Customers felt privileged to answer a survey 25 yars ago; since the last 10 years, they have been tearing up the form. There is no motivation for them to offer any response unless it results in some improvement.”

Bosch Power Tools commissions an international agency to do a survey every alternate year and analyse the responses. It also documents a huge quantity of feedback about usage, products and service at customer/construction exhibitions, says Vijay Pandey, Vice-President.

His company’s 24-Hour Service Promise, where money is refunded if the complaint is not attended to in 24 hours, took root in customers telling them that they did not want to wait too long for service.

“Technical feedback is very useful. Suggestions that the chisel needs to be longer, or that we should provide four drill bits instead of two, help us improve the product. We do not really need soft feedback like “good/happy” as the customers are repeat customers,” he says.

Eureka Forbes says it initiates the response process with a call to the customer once she purchases their product.

Marzin Shroff, CEO – Direct Sales & Senior Vice-President – Marketing, says many customers wanted the company to solve the problem of spurious operators so that they always get genuine spare parts and service. And so were born the company’s Customer Confidence Centres, which customers could call to verify the ID and password of the technician visiting them. Eureka Forbes also deploys a ‘Market Barometer’ at regular intervals to assess customer satisfaction of its products and service levels across cities.

Ask fewer questions

What can motivate customers to answer surveys and give valuable feedback? Reduce the number of questions. Titan’s Raghunath says, “It’s best to be precise. Ask customers what more the companies can do to make them happy.

Qualitative answers help to implement change. Asking for ratings generates hundreds of responses but ‘actionability’ is very low,” he says. Asking questions in regional languages is important.

Consumers will respond if the survey aims to solve a problem, says Eureka Forbes’ Shroff. His company got good responses when it conducted surveys to gauge awareness about contamination of drinking water, and to measure the awareness levels of indoor air pollution. Personalising e-mails about the survey when it’s put up on websites and apps elicits a better response. The survey should be conducted when the experience is fresh in the customers’ minds.

Are these incentive enough or do customers want something more? Like a gift? Pandey of Bosch Power Tools says they have experimented with giving small souvenirs, maybe the company’s product, or even a bag. Titan’s Raghunath says that when they invite consumer groups for discussions, they serve tea and give them a small memento but customers participate mainly because they are happy to be heard, they feel valued.

Pravin Shekar, CEO of Krea, a research firm that helps companies draw up questionnaires and collect data, says gamification is a new trend in survey design. Questions are reworded to make them more interesting. Elements like smileys, images and videos are added to make them more fun to participate in.

Open-ended questions raise the level of engagement. The pattern of responses and time taken to answer the survey can indicate whether the answers are heartfelt or perfunctory, he says.

Ultimately, the reason people answer surveys is because of brand loyalty or an incentive. A CEO survey, for instance, could lure the respondents to answer questions by promising them a free copy of the final report. And there are people, often part of a database, who get paid to take surveys.

This is not to mean that they are professionals or that the amount paid is huge – it ranges from Rs 25-250 in cash or kind, but is an acknowledgment of the time they spent on it, says Shekar.

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