Recently my partner and I visited a new restaurant, the Rio Grande in Coral Bay, Cyprus. We had what could have easily been a uniquely bad dining experience turned around purely by great customer engagement when, at times, the customer service wouldn’t have seemed out of place in a Monty Python sketch. It’s a story I want to recount to you…In 36 degrees Celsius heat, with a full restaurant with no air conditioning inside and nowhere outside to sit, we were greeted and shown to a specially created ‘romantic’ table on their balcony. Our drinks were ordered and delivered promptly by a waiter whose exertions running up and down the stairs created ever-swelling rivers of sweat down his shirt. So I’m reading the menu and a beetle bounces onto my arm - no major problem given the warm weather. Fast-forward to our starter course, another beetle bounces onto our table and simultaneously vaults over our shared starter with the grace of a Gold medal contender at this year’s Olympics. It’s closely followed by a peloton of its compatriots for another few minutes until our ever-enthusiastic waiter re-appears. He’s clearly not very surprised or shocked by beetles falling like lemmings from the roof above and we were moved to another table still on our romantic balcony. Problem resolved even if Stavros by this point was wearing more ‘water’ on his shirt than he was carrying in the jug he’d thoughtfully brought up the stairs with him. Our main course arrived and my partner, having ordered a spicy beef enchilada, got a bowl of chilli con carne. We explained it was the wrong meal after much conversation, Stavros disappears and a second waiter appears for a second opinion – no, clearly it didn’t look like a burrito. But Chilli was a better choice in his opinion! Then the manageress appears and after suitably reprimanding Stavros plus much heated debate she agreed to take the offending chilli back to the kitchen but turning away added that Chilli was a better choice and by the way it would be 30 minutes more as the kitchen was very busy! Insulted and embarrassed for Stavros, but equally famished, my partner agreed to eat the chilli and we wished our dining experience to evaporate like the proverbial giant black hole that Stavros was probably wishing would swallow him up on the spot.And now for the start of the recovery… Stavros returned to apologise for the mix up. We’re relaxed and the chilli is actually pretty good as it turns out. But my order is missing the salsa so Stavros’s protégé agrees to fetch it. Long after we’ve finished the course, Stavros sheepishly reappears with said salsa. Cue another round of effuse apologies from Stavros and his colleague. So picture this, the balcony tables are filling and one after another the orders they’ve taken (largely by committing to memory) are baring little resemblance to what is arriving and the restaurant is fast-becoming a scene that only Basil Fawlty could delight in.Cue another Stavros recovery, to make up for the mistakes he asks us if we wanted a free dessert. So I order 3 scoops of ice cream (there were 4 which he reeled off with great difficulty) and much to his credit he delivers all 4 flavours ‘to compensate for getting everything else wrong’. Delivered with a smile I was convinced he couldn't remember which 3 I’d ordered. But this is the key – throughout our dining experience, though almost everything that could go wrong, had gone wrong, Stavros remained totally engaged with us, his customers. And to cap it off, he brought us our favourite after dinner drinks ‘on the house’ before proceeding to give us a restaurant card with a handwritten discount for the next time we visited or wanted to try their sister restaurant.So here’s the moral of the story, even if the food order is hopelessly wrong, even if the restaurant conditions are unbearable and the ambiance is invaded by unpleasant objects, even if arguments break out … if you consistently and positively engage your customers they’ll remember your great customer service in a way they want to tell the world about you - instead of Faulty Towers! Try the SurveyMe app for free to create surveys and get honest feedback  

SURVEY ME EXPANDS TO NEW ZEALAND DURING FIRST YEAR STARTUP Continuing on from the successful launch and growth in 2011, SurveyMe, the first ever UK-based smartphone application for customer feedback, has now launched in New Zealand. Users in the UK have grown by 331% in the last 6 months and the expansion has come on the back of business users in New Zealand using SurveyMe. Andy McDowell, whilst working in his own logistics business in Auckland, first saw the application in 2011 and saw the opportunity to launch a unique product into the New Zealand marketplace. Andy says “The launch of SurveyMe into New Zealand is incredibly exciting. The software is simple to use and meets the needs of all businesses whether large or small. It has proved to be really easy to transport halfway across the world from the UK and has been received well by the Kiwi market.” “The New Zealand ‘let’s give it a go’ attitude has resulted in nothing but positive feedback. We have strategic plans to roll out SurveyMe across the country over the next 12-18 months and into Australia over the next couple of years. We already have a varied client-base in New Zealand from Logistics, IFA’s to Insurance brokers and continuing to grow,” explains Andy McDowell, Director, SurveyMe NZ. Lee Evans, CEO, SurveyMe commented “We have had a very successful first year with more users in the UK than anticipated in our first 12 months. For us to be able to launch in New Zealand in our second year is very exciting. Andy has vast experience in growing businesses so he is the ideal partner for our venture in the Asia Pacific region. SurveyMe lets you capture what you want to know, when you want to know it, from the people that matter most, wherever they are in the world.” The application, which can be downloaded free on to iPhone, iPad or Android smartphones, enables people to give valuable real-time feedback from their smartphone, enabling businesses to improve customer experience or reward consumers. It is also a tool that allows the capture of research for new products, media stories or more general consumer insights. Basically anytime you need to find out information from a pool of people then SurveyMe is a cost efficient way of delivering that information in an easy to use format.

Here is an example of a customer service survey, which you can try surveying your customers with. Types of questions to use When writing customer service surveys, you can choose from the following types of questions (I've added an example for each one): Closed question (1 possible selection, multiple choice checkbox type) Please state your marital status:O SingleO MarriedO DivorcedO Rather not say* *) Note: for privacy related questions I often add a "rather not say" choice, unless of course it's essential for the survey. Open question (text field type) Describe one function you would like to see in our software:______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Identification (Identifying the customer) Please state your full name or email address:__________________________________________________ Multiple Choice (more possible selections, checkbox type) Please select the newsletters you want to receive:O New Season’s ProductsO Planned promotional events and offersO General Community newsValuation scale (very bad--very good) What do you think of the cleanliness today?Very bad <-----> Very good1----2----3----4----5----6 ** Importance scale (Not important--very important) For me, status is...Not important <-> Very important1-----2-----3-----4-----5-----6 ** **Often I see a ‘5 scale’, particularly on rating websites like Trip Advisor. But this is only a throw back to an older form of star-ratings for hotels. For me a 5-scale opens up a "safety choice", where the customer can choose safe middle ground for a rating. Using a 6-scale, the customer must choose (in those cases) either a slight positive or slight negative angle. Knowing the nuances is often as important as learning the extreme choices. So also, consider scales of 1 to 10 or an 8-scale because these enable you to increase the degree of opinion versus a 5-scale. What sequence to ask questions in? Putting the questions in a good order is also important for the success of the customer survey. The questions should invite the customer into the survey. So, always start with the easy questions, as starting with difficult questions can easily scare them off from completing your survey. Always put identification questions at the end of the customer survey.

When writing surveys, some mistakes are made that result in a greatly reduced return ratio. Please feel free to learn from these mistakes, and don’t: •    ... create extremely long surveys. If answering the survey is not in line with the reward for the customer, she will not bother to fill it in. A lengthy survey takes a lot of time and if you are using an App survey it could affect the download speed. So if you are going to do a long survey there must be a great "reward" at the end. •    ... ask privacy related questions if not absolutely necessary. Customers are protective of their privacy, and rightfully so. Most customers frown on having to answer many privacy related questions. If you really want to know (f.i. salary level) make sure you have an opt-out choice in the question. If you don't, reassure the customer about how you handle these questions. •    ... create a survey that's difficult to answer. A customer willing to answer your survey, will eventually abandon it if it's incomprehensible. •    ... forget that a bad customer survey with incorrect spellings and poor grammar will make your business look bad

For me, selling is about relationships and during that process, whoever builds the strongest relationship is going to be the one who gets the sale. Why? Trust. People buy from people they like. They like people who are like themselves - and who are interested in them. They trust people who they perceive are like themselves, who consult them, and ask their views before selling to them. Key components of consultative selling So, hopefully the need for diagnosis is now firmly established in your mind, think of yourself in any sales or marketing situation (essentially every minute you are in business) as a doctor or a consultant. And there are three key components to any consultative selling process: •    presenting, •    qualifying, and •    closing, … but not necessarily in that order. With the help of another real-life example, we will now see, which order is most effective and why. A study done with three companies - they all sold the same thing, namely their professional expertise built up over many years. The first company has a four month sales cycle and a 90% close rate. The second company has an eight month sales cycle selling the same thing, twice as long as the first company, with a 60% close rate. Third company - 14-month sales cycle and 2% close rate. Remember, all were selling the exact same professional service. But the difference was each one used a different order of the three component parts in which they organised their consultative process. The first company was doing what we can call a ‘quid pro quo’ approach. There was a two-year study on winning in a competitive situation. They brought the best minds, game theorists, mathematicians, and all kinds of people to say, “How do you win in a competitive situation?” If you have ever played noughts and crosses then consider how do you win in that game? By going first and hoping the other person makes a mistake, right? But it is tit for tat, and it is, you go, I go.  The second company used what is known as the ‘traditional consultative approach.’ And the third one used what I call the ‘spray and pray’ - throw it out there, and see what sticks. The company with the quid pro quo approach, which was the most successful consultative selling process, had the three ingredients in this specific order: •    Step #1 - they qualified the deal. •    Step #2 was that they closed the deal. •    And Step #3 was they presented. The qualification was, do they have their ducks in a row? Do we understand what they want to accomplish, and all the parameters around that? Ok? The close was, “if I can do all the things based upon your parameters and what you want done, will you buy from me”? Because, if the answer to that question is, “no”, then doing a pitch or a proposal, or a price quote presentation doesn’t matter. It is over. So you are just making sure that they are ready, willing and able to make a decision before you show them anything that they need to see. Now the second company’s sales cycle was the traditional approach is this: qualification first, presenting second, and closing third. That is a very traditional approach. It works and there is nothing wrong with it. But as you see, it is just not as effective as the first one. And the last approach, the spray and pray, is where you present - you go out and tell everybody about what you are doing and show them, right? So the order of the three ingredients in the Spray and Pray approach is, you present, then you qualify, and then you close. Three times longer sales cycle, and 40 times less effective than the Quid Pro Quo Consultative sales approach. Why Consultative Selling works so well So in the study of the three companies, why did the quid pro quo model deliver a 45 times higher close rate, three times faster? I enjoy debating this with our some of our SurveyMe clients who manage successful businesses. Here's what they tell me... They prefer it when their suppliers adopt the quid pro quo approach over the traditional consultative selling process because it doesn't waste their time. Also, it is much better at facilitating and finding out what they wanted. Most say they usually always prefer to do business this way i.e. have their suppliers ask them their opinion in advance, check with them that what they are about to be supplied with is what they want. Its what as customers they themselves appreciate and is most likely to make them buy something!Can you now relate to why asking for feedback from your customers will only improve your business?

Both before and after they subscribe to SurveyMe clients commonly ask us questions about using customer satisfaction surveys. Usually these are something like …1.    Who should I survey for their opinion?2.    Why should I survey my customers? 3.    What questions should I ask my customers?4.    When should I ask customers for feedback?5.    Where should I ask for feedback?6.    How should I ask for feedback?7.    How often should I ask people for feedback?Generally, effective customer satisfaction surveys should focus on measuring customer perceptions of how well you, as an organisation, deliver the critical success factors that your customers (and prospective customers) value most about doing business with you. Typically, these will include things like service promptness, staff responsiveness, the business environment, products, pricing, all under the umbrella of understanding your customer’s needs.  It is perhaps therefore your first starting point in creating an on-going customer feedback survey program to ask your customers to rate what factors they most and least value about doing business with you – you may be surprised!Once you have established the initial scope and thought about the results you got, then its time to consider questions that will make your customer survey and feedback programme the most effective you can for your organisation. Each week, I will blog some thoughts and tips about each of the most common questionswe get asked to help you optimise customer satisfaction or feedback surveys. Having said all this, for me the single most critical factor about employing customer satisfaction surveys as a tool to improve your business is not what you learn but what you do with that knowledge. Once you know what your customers want don't make the mistake of ignoring their wishes. Remember your customers "vote with their feet" - so inaction is no longer an option! Imagine the frustration of taking the time to help you and answer your customer survey, and then noticing absolutely no change. A customer service survey may increase customer satisfaction, but only if things change!  So make a plan to build on what your customers perceive as your strengths, and correct any faults they tell you about. And when you’ve finished your plan...  show your customers that you’ve heard them!

How to Measure Good Customer Service [More]