In the same way that Mystery Shopping gives you a measurable insight to how your organisation is being represented, Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSS) give you a measurable insight to your customers perception of your organisation. 

So, your staff could be doing everything right according to the procedures manual, or perhaps they give an astounding performance in a mystery shopping audit but what do your customers actually think about the service they are receiving?  And how often are your staff actually getting it right.

Customer Satisfaction Surveys are an effective way to measure what your customer believes to be their experience of your organisation.  Their lasting impression is often more important that their actual experience and this is where using a CSS becomes very useful in two ways -

1. reminds the customer of the actual experience as they answer specific questions and grade accordingly
2. conveys a message that no matter what their experience - your organisation cares what they think

It costs less to retain an existing customer than to source a new one and with that in mind it is worth spending some time on addressing customers compliments and issues.  In addition to this Customer Satisfaction Surveys can also be doubled up as a direct or emarketing tool focusing on your branding or even your website or personal message.

Customer Satisfaction Surveys can be conducted in many ways including;

• E-zine/email questionnaire
• Online links
• Conventional paper based questionnaire
• Direct person to person questionnaires