4 Tips On Seeking Honest Customer Feedback

Companies seek qualitative data to enhance their businesses and this leads them to seek honest customer feedback and opinions. However, studies indicate that the average customer is easily distracted in eight seconds.The US Census Bureau carries out the most extensive business surveys in America. Getting feedback is necessary because of the vital data they provide to ensure business continuity and planning towards the future. If you run a business and intend to conduct a survey, there are things to consider first. For example, to avoid bias in responses, you must totally avoid leading questions. Consider the points below on how you can plan your feedback collection methods before getting it out into the public domain.

• The wording of your questions must be neutral

Neutrally worded questions will reduce the risk of having leading statements. For example, if you want to determine if consumers are content with your product, avoid framing your question in this manner: “Do you like our new product?” A better option would be, “on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate this new product?” The distinctive feature of this carefully framed question is the unrestricted opening it offers people as they express accurate perceptions of your product. Otherwise known as the MaxDiff Analysis, you will be able to determine honest opinions without risking response bias.

• Offer an exhaustive list of answers

In most professional business surveys, it’s not enough to just provide the usually typical YES or NO set of answers. It’s worth knowing that your respondents may not have strict answers that fall within the straitjacket set of options you provided. Therefore, to avoid or reduce bias responses, offer a comprehensive and exhaustive set of answers. For example, ‘I don’t know; None of the above; Other; etc. are excellent ways to derive truthful responses. Sometimes, your respondents do not deliberately set out to be biased. However, your restrictive answer options compel them to tick what they feel closely describes their responses the most.

• Structure your survey

A business survey with a coherent structure contributes to the respondents’ ability to understand what is expected of them. Do the questions in the survey follow a pattern? Furthermore, does a subsequent question build upon the previous one? All these thoughtful considerations will determine the outcome of your survey. However, a haphazard arrangement of questions (digital or on paper) will likely put people off. Keep in mind that a thoughtfully structured survey provides an enhanced positive experience among respondents. More importantly, it reduces the probability of response bias.

• Consider the demographic

There are situations when it becomes mandatory to consider the demographics of the respondents you want to reach. In other words, a respondent outside your desired demographic will not be adequately suited for the intended purpose. For example, your demographics can be set to include the following: the employed, or persons between ages 35 and 45 with an expected level of education. Therefore, any respondent outside the specifics highlighted can mar the outcome.

To conclude, because results from customer feedback surveys are intended for serious purposes, it is critical to go the extra mile to set the processes right. In essence, what you put in, is what you will get out of it.