Don’t send client surveys

I’m a big believer in conducting annual client surveys. Surveys are great ways to confirm how well you and your IT support team are doing.

What you should not do is send your clients a survey and expect them to fill it out, , , they won’t.

A better, more effective approach is to take the survey with you and visit your client. Do an interview and ask your client the questions that are on your survey list. There are many benefits in doing this:

• Gives you an opportunity to comunicate with your client
• Their answers will give you ability to learn more
  • Examples and specific reasoning that justifies their point
  • Clarifications
  • Additional information
• You will actually get their feedback this way

Send a 5 or 6-question survey to your clients (senior managers and Department managers), and you will get some feedback, but not very much. Meet with and interview your clients and you will receive a lot of feedback, , , and even have the opportunity to ask additional questions.

An interview always generates additional questions than what you walk into the interview with, , , use this time to learn as much as you can about how your client feels about the level of support your IT team is providing.

Be open and listen attentively and remember, , , “Your client is always right!”

The client may not be factually correct, but their perspective is critical. If they think your IT organization is performing poorly, you have to discover why they have that perspective. It could be that in fact, your team is dropping the ball, , , it could also be that the client’s expectations are out of whack with what your team can deliver.

Either way, your job is to learn what the client’s perspective is and address their issues, , , but not during the interview.

Don’t try to justify or address the issues in this survey gathering interview, , , this interview is only for discovery, , , not when you try to solve problems.

After you interview all your clients, , , analyze the feedback you receive and summarize your findings. Then comes the hard part.

You should develop a Summary Report along with an action plan to address the key issues you discover. It doesn’t do much good to conduct a survey if you don’t plan to do anything with the information. It’s actually another opportunity for you to show your client you are proactively engaged in supporting your client as effectively as you can.

And be sure you communicate your findings to your clients. It should go without saying, but don’t go through all the work and then fail to finish off the project. Communicating the results of the survey and articulating your action plan from what you’ve learned is probably the most important part.

So, , , the point is, , , don’t send Client Satisfaction Surveys. Do an interview with each of your clients to collect their feedback. You will be more effective and get much more information, , , , plus it is a great way to spend quality time with your client.

Take a look at the Client Satisfaction Survey I like to use at https://itlever.com/2010/05/24/are-your-clients-happy/

Right now (early in the new year) is a great time to conduct an annual survey. The example you will see at the ITLever Post link provided above can tell you a great deal about how well your IT organization is performing in the eyes of your customer, , , and that’s ultimately what really counts.