Customer satisfaction is the most critical aspect of any business. How do you know if your customers are happy with your product or service? The best way to find out if your customers are satisfied is to ask them. The most systematic way to collect customer satisfaction information is a customer satisfaction survey.

The key elements you need to think about when designing a customer satisfaction survey are: what are the right questions; is the survey in a format that is easy for the customer to answer; and how will you compile, interpret, and using the data you gather from the survey to improve your customer relations.

Traditional customer surveys were conducted in person while the customer was at your store of office or by telephone or a mailed survey after the customers had concluded their business with you. Today email and online customer satisfaction surveys are more popular choices.

Once you collect your customer’s email addresses an email or online survey is easy to deliver and easy for you to create and update. The email or online surveys are convenient for the customer to respond to, and the information provided is easy to compile and sort for your information and use. You can even set up an automatic response thanking the customer for returning the survey.

There are customer satisfaction survey software products available that allow you to easily create customized customer satisfaction surveys and to analyze and interpret the data with built in cross tabulation and filtering tools. These customer satisfaction software products range from basic to sophisticated and variations of the customer satisfaction survey software  is used by small business owners with little or no technical support and Fortune 500 companies.

Regardless of the method you use to deliver the survey you need to keep it simple. A good survey should take the customer only a few minutes to answer.

Ask the customer what you need to know. Don’t load the survey up with esoteric questions. Ask relevant questions like:

• Are you satisfied with the purchase you made?
• Are you satisfied with the service you received?
• Are you satisfied with our company overall?
• How likely are you to buy from us again?
• How likely are you to recommend us to others?
• What did you like about our product?
• What didn’t you like about our product?

You will get a higher response rate if you offer incentives to those returning the customer satisfaction survey. Maybe a coupon, cash or offer to enter the respondents in a contest or drawing.

Regardless of the delivery method you need to ask these questions in a timely manner after the customer receives your product or service. If too much time elapses between the time the customer makes the purchase and the time they answer the survey the responses will be less reliable. As time passes recollections fade and the customer may even be confused as to which company or product you are asking about making the customer’s answers totally useless for your purposes.