Measure Service Quality

Providing high-quality service is a major concern for nearly any business. Quality of service can be a major factor when customers decide which business to use to solve their needs. Customers have certain expectations about the level of satisfaction they'll get from businesses they patronize. Businesses that make a habit of meeting these expectations can enjoy consistent business and a loyal customer base. However, it's difficult to improve your quality of service if you don't have any input from your customers about how to improve. Thus, gathering customer feedback and using it to measure service quality should be a significant part of nearly any business's game plan.

Steps

Getting Customer Feedback

1. Use surveys. Perhaps the most simple, direct way to get feedback from your customers is simply to ask for it. One easy way to do this is with a survey — a list of questions about their experience. Surveys with multiple-choice questions are especially useful for businesses because answers to these sorts of questions can easily be quantified, so it's easy to express conclusions from the data in the form of graphs, scatter plots, etc.
   • Usually, surveys are given at the end of the consumer's experience (such as after dinner or as they are checking out of a hotel). You may want to include a survey with the documentation that completes the transaction, like the bill after a meal, the receipt for a store purchase, and so on.
   • Keep things short and sweet — almost no one likes filling out long, detailed surveys. The more simple and to-the-point your survey is, the more likely people are to fill it out.
2. Follow up with customers after service. Another common way that businesses get feedback from their customers is by contacting them after the service has been completed. This is usually done by using the contact info provided by the customer as part of receiving their service — you may have participated in this form of feedback if you've ever gotten a follow-up call from your cable company after having a receiver installed, for instance. This form of feedback has the advantage of giving customers some time to use your business's service before asking for their opinion.
   • Unfortunately, one disadvantage of this type of feedback is that it can be seed as rude or cloying. For instance, if a family receives a follow-up call during their nightly dinner, this may negatively affect their view of your business. One way to offset this somewhat is to use less obtrusive ways of contacting your customers, like email, social media, and other electronic modes of communication. Note, however, that electronic methods have been shown to favor data from different demographic groups than phone surveys.
3. Offer usability tests. The two customer feedback examples above have both involved gathering service quality data from customers after they've used your business. Usability tests, on the other hand, offer the ability to get feedback from your customers during their use of your product or services. Typically, in a usability test, a few participants are given samples of your product or service while observers watch and take notes. The participants are usually asked to complete specific tasks or problems with the product or service — if they can't complete them, this can be a sign that the product or service has design issues.
   • Usability tests can give extremely valuable data about how to improve a product or service. For instance, if you're testing the quality of your new cloud-based writing platform and you notice that most of your participants have a hard time changing the font size, you'll know that this option should be made more intuitive during the final release.
   • To keep the cost of usability tests low, make the most of the resources at your disposal — conduct the tests in your offices, during your business hours, and, if possible, use your business's own recording equipment. Renting these things can become very expensive.
4. Monitor your social media presence. Today, "word of mouth" doesn't refer only to the conversations people have with each other in person — the rise of social media in the past decade has made it easy for people to discuss their likes and dislikes online. Take the comments made about your business on social media seriously — though the standards for online communication aren't particularly high, people are somewhat more likely to be honest online, where they have a degree of anonymity, than they are in person.
   • If your business doesn't already have an account on at least one major social media site (like Facebook, Yelp, or Twitter), get to work on making one right away. Not only is this a way to start monitoring your social media "footprint", but also to promote your business and notify your customer base of upcoming events.
   • One site in particular that you'll want to have a presence on is Yelp. Since Yelp is a very widely-used repository of reviews and testimonials, it can have a major effect on a business — in one recent study, small businesses reported that a strong Yelp presence helped them achieve an additional $8,000 in revenue per year.
5. Incentivize the feedback process. Customers are human beings with plenty of their own commitments, so their time and effort are valuable. Thus, you're much more likely to get feedback from customers if you make it worth their while. One way to do this is simply to pay customers to give you detailed feedback or participate in tests. If you can't spare the cash for this, you can still incentivize your customers to give you good feedback if you're willing to get creative. Below are just a few sample ideas:
   • Offer discounts or preferred status to participating customers
   • Enroll participating customers in a drawing or contest for a prize
   • Give gift cards or store credit
   • Give out free merchandise
6. Use analytics data for online business. If your business does some or all of its operations online, you can use the power of web analytics to draw conclusions about the quality of service on your website. By monitoring which pages your customers view, how long they stay on each page, and other browsing habits, it's possible to draw valuable conclusions about the quality of your online service.
   • For example, let's say that you operate a company that lets users pay to watch DIY car repair videos made by expert mechanics. Using an analytics tool that lets you monitor the traffic to each page, you discover that 90% of visitors make it to the pricing information page but only 5% go on to select one of the service options. This may be a sign that your pricing scheme isn't competitive — perhaps lowering your prices may get you a more favorable sales rate.
   • Just a few popular web analytics tools include: Google Analytics (free), Open Web Analytics (free), Clicky (requires registration), Mint (paid), and Click Tale (paid).
7. Outsource your feedback needs to a competent third party. If your business is really struggling with measuring its service quality, it's important to remember that it doesn't have to handle this task on its own. If you simply don't have the time or resources to effectively gather customer feedback, try enlisting the services of a high-quality customer service firm. The best firms will take your business's unique mission into account while handling your customer feedback needs and keeping you up-to-speed on any problems. For businesses with room in their budget for outsourcing, third party solutions can be huge time-savers and efficiency-boosters.
   • Note, however, that using a third party to handle your customer service can sometimes make it appear as if your business doesn't consider customers' opinions important enough to deal with directly. Because of this, when outsourcing your customer service needs, it's extra important to present an empathetic, "human" image to consumers.
8. Show customers that their feedback matters. Ask yourself this question: if you were an average consumer, who would you be more likely to spend time sending a detailed, well-written service quality review to: a massive, faceless organization to whom you don't matter, or a business run by human beings that takes the time to respond to its customer's needs? The answer should be obvious. If your business has a reputation for taking its customers' problems seriously, you'll find that you get more (and better) feedback without having to make any other changes. All that's necessary is to take the extra time and effort to reach out to customers that contact you with comments about your service quality.
   • One easy way for small and large businesses alike to do this is to respond to your customers' comments and concerns on social media, where they're most visible to other customers. You may not be able to prevent every customer from leaving your business unsatisfied, but if you respond to an angry review on social media graciously and professionally, for instance, you can make the best of a bad situation and maybe even win the customer's business back.

Evaluating Your Business

1. Measure the quality of the customer’s point of contact. When you're designing a survey or another method of measuring your business's service quality, it's important to focus on the very most important metrics (since customers are less likely to complete longer, more complicated surveys). One of the most important details of all to focus on is the quality of the customer's point of contact. By examining the interaction between customers and your representatives, you can determine whether your business's interactions with your customers are satisfactory. In addition, this line of questioning can help you "weed out" problem employees with bad attitudes. Try to ask questions like the following:
   • Which employee(s) provided your service?
   • Did the employee(s) providing the service appear to be knowledgeable?
   • Were they courteous to customers as well as other staff?
   • Did they convey a sense of confidence and trust?
2. Measure the empathy of the company as a whole. If your business deals directly with consumers (as opposed to other businesses), it's vital to convey the idea that your business cares about its customers. There isn't one single way to do this — the solution to this problem is part marketing, part branding, and (especially) part service quality. To measure this quality in surveys and so on, focus on asking questions like the following:
   • Did the consumer feel the company and/or employee(s) cared about the people they were working with?
   • Did the customer feel they received individualized attention?
   • Did the company project a friendly, welcoming atmosphere?
3. Measure the reliability of the company. High service quality in the short-term doesn't mean much if it can't be sustained in the long-term. Consistency is a hugely important aspect of high-quality service — in fact, research has shown that reliability is generally considered the most important aspect of good service by customers. Reliability is the reason that huge-multinationals like McDonalds are able to attract customers everywhere. Customers like getting the same satisfactory result every time they use a business's products or services. Thus, to judge the consistency of your service, ask questions like the following:
   • Did the employee or company perform the service accurately?
   • Did the customer feel the company or employee would be able to dependably continue to perform the service in the future?
   • Would the customer use the company's services again in the future?
   • If this is not the customer's first time using the company's services, how did their most recent experience compare to past ones?
4. Measure the responsiveness of the company. Though it's probably obvious, it definitely bears mentioning that customers nearly everywhere prefer interacting with companies that are kind, polite, prompt, and willing to satisfy them. Measuring your company's responsiveness can help you determine whether to devote more resources to creating a positive experience for your customer by training your employees to be more effective, hiring new personnel, and/or using different strategies for dealing with customers. Try focusing on questions like the following:
   • How willing and able was the employee able to respond to the customer's needs?
   • How quickly was service provided?
   • Did the employee seem happy to offer additional service?
5. Measure the tangible aspects of the customer's experience. Even the happiest, promptest, most accommodating employees can't give high-quality service if they don't have the equipment to do their job or the actual physical environment of the business is unsatisfactory. Keeping the physical, tangible aspects of your business in good order is an important aspect of providing high-quality service. Pinpoint flaws in your business's operations by asking questions like the following:
   • Was all equipment functioning properly?
   • Was the appearance of the product or business clean and satisfactory?
   • Was the appearance of the employee(s) professional?
   • Were all communications clear and professional?

Improving Your Business’s Service

1. Give your employees defined standards for service. Employees' work can be hindered if they're given countless pointless rules to follow, but some amount of direction is vital for sensitive areas like customer service. Employees should know exactly what's expected of them when they interact with customers and deliver your business's services. For most businesses, this will include a friendly, helpful attitude, a willingness to please the customer, and quick, professional service. Additional requirements may vary, so it's up to you and your business's management to clearly communicate your goals to your employees.
   • Often, the simplest service rules are the most effective ones. For example, Little Caesars, a large US fast food pizza chain, gives its employees the simple goal of providing every customer with "a perfect pizza and a smile in 30 seconds or less." This simple directive outlines the most important qualities of the business's service (quality, friendliness, and quickness) and makes it very clear what type of service is expected.
2. Compete for employee talent. Perhaps the most important resource a company can have is its employees. Without skilled, motivated employees, it's nearly impossible to consistently deliver good-quality service; with them, good service is the norm. If you want the absolute best employees for your business, don't wait for them to come for you — instead, hunt them down and be willing to make them persuasive offers when you find them. Advertise job openings in online and print classified ads. Represent your company at career fairs. Keep in touch with your network of business contacts and notify them when you're looking to hire. Most importantly, be willing to offer better compensation than your competitors.
   • One sound policy for attracting good employees (and improving the loyalty of existing employees) is to offer the members of your staff a “career”, rather than a job. This means a reasonable, consistent level of pay with competitive benefits and (most importantly) the possibility for promotion with hard work. Employees who can see the benefit of long-term employment at their current job are likely to put in the extra time and effort to give your customers exceptional service.
3. Offer your employees incentives for good service. What's one great way of getting excellent service quality out of your employees? Making it worth their while. Incentive good service means offering employees tangible rewards for meeting or exceeding the level of service that you want. Often, these rewards are in the form of money, but in some cases, other benefits, like vacation time, promotion, awards, and so on can work well. With a smart reward-based system set up, it's becomes the employee's best interest to provide good service because this will give them the greatest reward.
   • For example, most car dealerships pay their salesmen on a commission-based model — that is, car salesmen keep a percentage of the profits from the sale of car. This model works out well for both the salesmen and the dealership: salesmen will naturally work hard to make sales so that they can earn as much money as possible, increasing the number of cars the dealership sells.
4. Make tracking your service an ongoing part of your business plan. Measuring your business's service quality shouldn't be a one-time task. If you want to keep your service quality high as new problems arise, it should be a major, continuous part of your business operations. Consider adopting a few of the following strategies the next time you're setting your business's upcoming schedule:
   • Hold semi-regular service quality meetings with your management staff
   • Conduct regular employee reviews with an eye for improving service
   • Occasionally review your business's training regimen for new employees
   • If necessary, consider dedicating resources to the task of monitoring your company's online "profile" (or even hiring new staff or interns to do this)
5. Make it easy for customers to complain and receive responses. Businesses that want to improve their service quality can't be afraid to "face the music". Smart businesses make it easy for their customers to tell them what they're doing wrong — after all, the best judge of customer service is (obviously) the customer. Make a point to constantly solicit feedback from your customers. This can be as simple as keeping comment cards next to your cash register or as complicated as developing an online database to organize and store all customer service requests — it's up to you to decide what's reasonable for your business.
   • Whatever you do to get feedback from your customers, make an effort to respond to as much of it as possible. Doing this isn't just polite — it also creates a sense of community with your customers and makes it clear to them that their opinions matter. You'll definitely want to respond to reasonable complaints on social media and popular review sites like Yelp since reviews in these places can potentially be read by millions.

Tips

• Provide surveys in the native language of your customer whenever possible, to increase comprehension and accurate results.
• Customize your questions or questionnaires to be specifically targeted to your employees, industry, or service.
• Offering a reward in the form of a discount or a possibility of winning a prize may increase the overall number of responses to a survey.
• Limit the number of questions asked to increase the probability of thoughtful answers.

Warnings

• Measuring quality and customer satisfaction is extremely subjective. Other measures should also be implemented to determine the quality of the product or service being offered.
• The margin of error may increase depending on the number of surveys that are provided to consumers but are not returned.

Related Articles

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• Deal With Annoying or Frustrating Salespeople
• Meet the Demands of ISO/TS 16949 Regarding External Customer Satisfaction

Sources and Citations

See also

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• Get Clients for Consultants
• Prepare for Customer Service Jobs
• Make Customers Service Your Priority
• Ask Customers for Feedback
• Ask Customers for Reviews
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• Build Barber Shop Clientele
• Improve Service Quality at Your Business
• Write a Customer Service Email

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