Three Ways To Botch Client Surveys

Client Surveys: The Rule, Not the Exception

Once upon a time, professionals believed the sum total of marketing was to do great work. Great work would follow.

Those days never existed and even if you believe they did, they are long gone.

Today, clients have Everest-level expectations regarding the service your firm provides. That’s why taking your clients’ temperatures through client surveys has become the norm, rather than the exception. It’s all a part of today’s competitive business climate.

But despite growing enthusiasm regarding client surveys, there are still plenty of ways to botch the client survey—and, more importantly—your relationship with your client.

Way to Botch Client Surveys #1: Send Out Anonymous Mail or Web Surveys

This is what some firms elect to do. Drop a survey in the mail. Or send out a Web survey as a link in an email. Write ’em up. Send ’em out. Easy, right?

Wrong.

Your clients are sophisticated decision-makers who expect your personal interest. Something faceless mail or a Web survey can’t provide.

A mail survey does little to reassure a client that you really care about what they think, or are prepared to act on their response. You’re asking them to remain anonymous. That’s precisely how they’ll feel.

But more importantly, you can’t trust the results. As Sue Allison, Managing Director of The Brand Research Company, explains, “you simply can’t get the detailed information you need to truly measure client loyalty.”

“With anonymity, you can’t follow-up on anything,” she continues. “You don’t get to ask a follow-up question. And the lack of personal interaction prevents them from telling you about a lurking problem your initial question may not have anticipated.”

Her solution? “Telephone surveys make a huge difference,” she said. “In a good phone interview under the right circumstances, you’ll find out information you didn’t anticipate discovering.”

That is, if you’ve got the right people asking the questions.

“You simply can’t have your typical ‘phone center’ interviewer doing this,” she explained. Why?

According to Allison, “phone interviews are actually a kind of qualitative/quantitative dance.” Specific questions must be asked the same way every time. But, to get real qualitative information, “you need someone who can do that while chasing after the tangential information not on the questionnaire—sort of a ‘left brain/right brain’ thing.”

Way to Botch Client Surveys #2: Don’t Take Action

Here’s another formula for failure: Take the time and effort to survey your clients, then ignore the results.

Big mistake. Perhaps the biggest.

Why?

Clients expect action. They figure that you wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of asking them what they thought if you weren’t going to do anything about it.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a client remark that it was seemingly pointless to talk to us, since they told us about their issues last year and no action was taken,” said Allison.

In fact, client surveys pay off only when you take action, by developing action plans, identifying specific steps to correct persistently identified problems, or following-up in some way with a face-to-face meeting that ensures problems identified in the survey interview have been handled.

Way to Botch Client Surveys #3: Confront the Client About It

If a client has issues with your service, you must schedule a follow-up meeting to address them.

The keyword here is “address.” Not “confront.”

According to Allison, defensively confronting the client with survey results happens often: “Sometimes a lawyer becomes too aggressive and goes back to his client...in essence saying ‘Hey, why did you say this about this issue? I thought we addressed this, etc.’”

Understandably, clients are uncomfortable with confrontation of this nature.

The solution requires a softer touch. “We always recommend that a direct reference to a specific issue never be made,” says Allison. “Reference has to be made indirectly, something along the lines of ‘You know, we’ve had some issues with this sort of thing. How’s that going for you? Have you experienced the same thing?’”

Firms have realized that they’d better listen to what their clients are saying or they’re not going to be their clients anymore. Client surveys are one of the most effective ways of listening to clients and forging lasting partnerships and relationships. Relationships require personal attention. Your client surveys should reflect that, too.

To learn about how The Brand Research Company conducts client surveys, check out www.brandresearchcompany.com.