Customer Service Surveys: How to turn service feedback into great customer experiences

Great customer service is no longer just a nice-to-have – it’s often the deciding factor for customers. According to a survey conducted by Hyken, more than half of the respondents said they believe great customer service is more important than product price. If businesses want to stand out from the competition, they have to prioritise customer experience (CX) and offer great customer service.  

What customer service looks like is different from business to business – you might have staff working in person with clients, offer a 24-hour chat, or have a phone line for your customers. But no matter what format your customer service is, one thing remains true: your customers need to feel great after every interaction with your team. 

If you want your customers to have the best customer experience, customer service surveys can help you improve CX by measuring the current state of your customer service and understanding how your customers feel about you as a brand. This blog post dives into why customer service surveys are important for your CX and how you can implement them effectively to increase customer loyalty and satisfaction.  

Why you should collect customer service feedback

Feedback is inevitable for every business. What makes the difference is whether you listen and act on it. If you want to deliver customer service that not only meets but exceeds expectations, you first need to understand where you stand. Gathering feedback helps you assess how effectively your customer service agents are resolving customer queries—and where there’s room to grow.’.  

Beyond simply assessing your current state, there are other crucial reasons to collect customer service feedback:

Customer service affects how customers see your company  

Customer service agents are often the only point of human contact that customers have with your company, and this interaction can strongly affect how customers view your brand. A positive experience can turn a one-time buyer into a loyal customer who returns again and again. On the other hand, a negative interaction might be the deciding factor in choosing a competitor: More than half of consumers will switch to a competitor after only one bad customer experience.  

Customer service problems can be symptomatic of more serious problems  

Customer service agents often end up taking the blame for problems that are beyond their control – whether it’s flaws in the product, ineffective marketing, or unclear brand positioning. By collecting and analysing customer service feedback, you can identify the underlying problems and gain meaningful insights into what needs to change to enhance the overall customer experience. 

Gain insights from negative feedback  

Negative feedback can sting, but it also reveals a lot about customer needs and expectations, and whether you, as a company, are meeting them. Negative comments can also offer you intel about your competition. When customers mention what they like (or don’t) about other brands, they’re giving you a direct comparison and a chance to hone in on your brand positioning.  

Customer service surveys are easy to set up  

If nothing else has convinced you yet, here’s a simple reason to start collecting customer service feedback: it’s really easy to do. With CX tools like Netigate, you can even set triggers to automatically send them out whenever a customer interacts with your support team. You can send surveys through various channels and assess the results in dashboards, graphs, and visual reports. So why miss out on valuable insights if the process is this straightforward?  

Create an effective customer service survey (with question examples)

A well-crafted customer service survey does more than just gather opinions; it gives your customers a voice. By listening to both complementary and constructive feedback, you show that you value their input and promote a feeling of loyalty and connection to your brand. Let’s take a look at how to design a survey that captures meaningful insights, along with some sample questions to get you started:  

Follow the three S’s when setting up your survey:  

• Short: After a phone call or online chat, most customers won’t want to answer a lengthy survey. Stick to three or four questions – and make them count. 
• Simple: Make sure that the questions are easy to understand and to answer – otherwise, people won’t bother. Or worse, you may get unintentionally misleading answers. 
• Specific: While it’s important to give customers the opportunity to share their thoughts, it’s equally important to keep them focused on the issue at hand. Since you likely offer other channels for general feedback, tailor your questions to their most recent interaction with customer service. 

Find out if the customer service was successful  

The one question you definitely want answered in a customer service survey is “Was your problem resolved?”. The answer can help you assess the overall service quality and easily reveal when something went wrong.  

Question Examples:  

• “Did you get the help you needed?”  
• “Would you say that your problem is now resolved?” 
• “How would you rate the customer service agent you spoke to?” 
• “Do you have any other comments about your contact with customer service?” 

Follow up with an open-ended question  

While the first question gives you an idaea of whether the customer service was successful, the next step should be to find out why the customer gave certain feedback. You can both offer multiple-choice options or keep the question open-ended.  

Question Examples:   

• “What, if anything, could we have done better during your support experience?” 
• “Was there a specific part of the support experience that stood out to you – positively or negatively?” 
• “Did you feel heard and understood by the customer service agent?” 
• “Is there anything else you’d like us to know about your experience?” 

Another option is to offer different sets of follow-up questions based on the rating the customer provided. For example, if they rate the experience poorly, you ask, “What could we have done better today during your support experience?” If your agent received a positive rating, you can ask, “What made your interaction with our support team a good one today?”   

Best Practises for sending your customer service survey  

Send the survey right after the customer interaction

Timing is everything: when you send the survey immediately after the customer interaction, chances are that the customer will complete it before moving on with their day. With this approach, you’re capturing a fresh impression, both good and bad, leading to more accurate and useful feedback. If your customer is still unhappy after the interaction with your support team, sending the survey right away allows you to follow up promptly and to make sure their concerns are fully addressed.  

Make it easy to fill out the survey 

After your customer reached out to customer service, the survey should be available through the same channel they used for the interaction. For example, if your customer used an app, the survey should pop up within the app. If they interacted via chat, the survey should appear in the chat window.  

Most customers will respond to your survey on their smartphone, so ensure that the survey is mobile-friendly. Wherever possible, embed the rating system directly within the communication channel, like an email. Lastly, avoid requiring customers to sign in to provide feedback because this can be an unnecessary barrier to complete the survey. 

Personalise the message 

When you use the customer’s name and/or the name of the customer service agent in your survey message, you add a personal touch. For example, a simple line like, “Thank you for speaking with Anne today,” makes the message feel like a real request and less like a generic, automated follow-up. 

Clarify the purpose of the survey  

It can help to briefly explain why you are asking for feedback in the first place and how it will be used. For example, a sentence like “Your feedback will only be used internally and helps us improve our services,” can show your customers that their voice matters to you.  

Give your dissatisfied customers a second chance  

It might feel counterintuitive, but it’s great to reach out to dissatisfied customers with a customer service survey. The survey gives them the chance to share what went wrong in their opinion or even just a chance to blow off steam (and feel better afterwards). Their feedback is often the best chance to learn and grow as a business. Acknowledging their feedback gives you the option to make amends, mend or at least learn how to improve the experience for other customers in the future.  

Automate your survey delivery 

Automations make your life easier: With the help of CX tools you can set triggers for sending out a survey whenever a ticket is closed or when the status is moved to ‘resolved’. This takes away time you would waste on manually asking for feedback and ensures that the survey is sent out in a timely manner.  

Take action from the insights you gained 

Now that you have collected all this data on customer feedback, it is time to turn it into actions that move the needle for your business. The good news: even small changes can make you stand out from the masses. Over one-half of all consumers feel increasingly stressed and exhausted when dealing with customer support. Even small improvements can help you reduce that frustration, build trust, and create a more positive overall experience – the kind that customers remember and come back for. 

But what can these meaningful actions look like? Here is a list of common ways that businesses have used their customer feedback insights and turned them into tangible improvements that enhance customer experience:  

Training your staff  

Sometimes, a large volume of negative feedback is an indicator that your customer service team needs additional training or support. Upskilling can be expensive, so concrete data from customer feedback can help you build a strong case to persuade C-level why training is necessary and in which areas.  

Improve your product or service  

As mentioned earlier, sometimes issues that come through customer service are actually problems with the product experience. For example, if your customers often reach out about a certain feature in your software, the UX or product team can work on simplifying or redesigning the feature. Remember to close the feedback loop: Let your customers know that their feedback helped you improve the product and that an updated version is now available. 

Update Knowledge Base or Help Centre  

Customers tend to look for solutions by themselves, before they reach out to support staff. If a topic is brought up again and again in customer service surveys, it can also reveal gaps in your self-service content. Feedback like this can help you identify which topics need clearer guidance, allowing you to create dedicated FAQ articles or update existing help documents. Not only does it help customers find solutions faster, but it also supports your team by giving them helpful materials to reference. 

Make your customer feel secure  

Your customers need to be able to rely on you. If your customers mention uncertainty or unclear communication as a problem in their feedback, you should focus on what makes them feel secure with you as a brand. Make sure they feel heard and valued, and manage expectations clearly. If a customer service agent doesn’t have an immediate answer, they should feel empowered to say, “I don’t have the answer right now, but I’ll make sure to find it out for you.” 

Offer solid data on your customers  

One issue for customer service agents can be spotty data: 3 in 10 agents cannot reliably access customer information, leading to irritated customers. You want to make sure that your customer service agents can access all the data they need to make customer support easier.  

Improve availability  

Your customers should be able to reach out right away when they need an answer – be that via chat, phone, email, or sometimes even in person. If availability is a recurring problem in your customer feedback, you want to address it. Identify the peak times for your customer support and make sure that you have enough staff to cover them. Tools like Netigate allow you to segment your audience and create personalised workflows, ensuring that customers with high-volume orders or brand advocates receive an exceptional experience when they reach out. 

Use your Customer Service Feedback to improve your CX  

Customer service surveys can be a goldmine of insights for your business. If you ask your customers how they experience your support, you can understand them better, find out what still needs to be improved in your product, positioning or marketing and show your customers that you care about their opinions.  

When done right, customer service surveys can turn negative feedback into opportunities and increase customer loyalty & satisfaction.  

The best part? You don’t have to start from scratch. With Netigate, it is easy to build, send and analyse surveys that actually drive results. From intuitive templates to advanced analytics and automation, it’s everything you need to drive better experiences forward. 

Ready to apply this knowledge in your surveys? Then try Netigate for Free.