5 reasons why phone surveys should be part of your customer feedback loop.
Here’s our top five reasons why phone surveys are needed now more than ever.
#1. Capture the voices of your ‘hard to reach’ customers.
If you have older customers who are not online, customers with disabilities who are less mobile, or customers who are blind or partially sighted, phone surveys are vital.
“A lot of older people still aren’t online and so don’t have a voice, and people with mobility problems can’t always return a postal survey.”
Sarah, Doncaster Hub
#2. Capture the voice of your ‘in betweeners’.
If you’re just relying on text or online/postal survey, you tend to get responses from those on the extreme ends of the scale - those with a grievance or those who have had exceptional service.
But this can give skewed data sets - how can you find out what the majority of your customers really think?
“Some organisations might see telephone survey as archaic, but we really see the value of them. The beauty of a phone survey is it really is the full breadth - including the inbetweeners who make 90% of most people! Most organisations miss those if you’re just relying on text or online.” Barry, Sheffield City Council
#3. Get better quality, richer and more nuanced data
Our researchers are experts in eliciting precise responses and probing to check that feedback is accurate, and because it’s one human being listening and talking to another, there is the opportunity to probe answers further.
All our calls are recorded, which means you can also revisit the conversations that need more detailed analysis.
“It’s more in depth and more personal, and it allows you to pick up on the nuances. For us, it’s a conversation - we’ll pick up on things that might not strictly be related to that specific survey, but we recognise it’s still valuable data for the client (and sometimes for the individual) so will always pass that on.” Lynne, Doncaster Hub
“You can probe them more… if they aren’t happy about something, you can usually find out why.” Kelly, Doncaster Hub
#4. Engage with your customers 1-2-1, human-to-human!
How many times have you personally despaired at being forced to jump through hoops online, when all you really wanted was to speak to a real human being!
“It’s what’s it all about - talking to people. This is what’s happening to the world - nobody’s talking! When you get to my age - that’s what’s gone - there is no personal touch! A man I’ve just spoken to at the end of the call said ‘thank you for being patient with me’. I think people like hearing from us.” Janet, (73), Sheffield Hub.
“It’s a human way of gaining feedback from tenants, rather than text messages or emails. It’s a real person speaking to another real person.” Dean, Researcher, Leeds Hub.
#5. More responsive and flexible
“It allows us to tweak our focus each month, to ensure we proactively reach out to the views of specific groups. For example, if one month we notice we are not getting a representative number of BAME respondents, the next month, Viewpoint will focus on capturing those.” Barry, Sheffield City Council
“They were beyond helpful and have accommodated every chop and change we’ve asked for.” Lauren, Business Intelligence Officer, Norwich City Council
If you want to outsource phone surveys for your tenants or customers to improve the quality of your services, give us a call or drop us an email.
It’s not called the customer voice for nothing!