Why Your B2B CX Strategy Needs Perception-based Surveys
Updated: Oct 16
How often do you receive requests to complete customer satisfaction surveys?
Especially the type that pokes into your consumer's mind. It’s constant. But it makes you wonder how much value these surveys create for customers and organizations. Do they?
Can learning what satisfies customers be enough?
Through careful planning, surveys are designed to articulate invaluable customer insights that impact sales growth. There is value in this but are we truly measuring customer satisfaction the way it should be?
Customer Experience Surveys Will Help Boost Your Revenue
The obvious goal of surveys is to let an organization learn how customers feel about them. This includes how they feel about the products or services they receive.
Surprisingly, this is less important than how customers feel about an organization emotionally. The way customers feel about how they are treated and valued plays a larger role in how and where they decide to spend their money next.
Just think about an awesome customer experience you’ve had in the past. Didn’t it motivate you to come back? That’s how customer loyalty starts.
By measuring customer satisfaction, organizations send a message that they take their customer relationships seriously. The Harvard Business Review published a blog that explains how surveys affect customer retention. The results showed that customers who participated in a short customer satisfaction survey purchased from the company 3x more than customers who didn’t receive a survey. This highlights just how crucial it is for customers to feel valued and how something simple like a survey can truly impact sales revenue.
Customers who participated in a short customer satisfaction survey purchased from the company 3x more than those who didn’t receive a survey - HBR study
How to Approach Creating Customer Feedback Surveys for B2Bs
It might seem daunting to create surveys to get customer feedback, but with the right approach, it is easy!
Customer satisfaction surveys can be conducted by mail, phone, and online. Each has its own pros and cons, but it seems that the most common channels are online and over the phone.
The correct medium for your survey depends on your organization and what it is looking to accomplish. A smaller business may be able to utilize telemarketing to survey customers about their experience and gain more detailed insights that an online questionnaire would not. A larger business might have the most success with an online survey. Online surveys make it easier to gather data and analyze customer feedback within a short amount of time. Both methods provide invaluable insights, but they only work when you implement the best means for gathering customer feedback.
Why Perception-based Surveys Have More Impactful Value
Here at Encompass-CX, we believe in making CX strategies efficient for your business and clients.
If both the company and the customer are spending valuable time on a survey, it has to create value for everyone.
Survey questions have to learn more than what makes customers satisfied or happy. Surveys have to discover what creates an emotional connection between a buyer and a product, service, or salesperson.
Perception-based survey questions are expected to gather more information than whether a customer is satisfied or not. While these extract as much data as possible, the goal it keep it brief to retain the attention of the responder. This means that every question must have a purpose and be significant.
For example, specific inquiries about what your salespeople do well when working with their clients are worthwhile information. On a client's end, if they can give feedback on how their account manager values long-term relationships over short-term gain, then leaders can point out the gap between their expectations.
Traditional scoring surveys for customer satisfaction typically use multiple-choice questions. With perception-based surveys, open-ended questions encourage customers to provide constructive feedback. This helps you collect better information in order to improve your customer experience.
Perception-based Surveys for Building Trusted Advisor Relationships
Julia L. Roberts recently wrote an exceptionally informative piece for the Huffington Post that explored aspects to consider while creating a survey. One of the points in the article suggests a follow-up to a survey. This would be post-survey once all the results have been analyzed the company could report findings that show growth opportunities, and client pain points, and highlight gaps between responses.
Is there a better way of showing customers you care than showing them you listened to their concerns and are implementing those ideas toward change?
Understanding your buyer's perception leads to an effortless client experience. When surveys focus on building Trusted Advisor relationships, it maximizes customer value and fosters customer loyalty.
Analyzing Perception and Fact-based Customer Data with Encompass-CX Tool
Creating perception-based surveys can be a game-changer, but analyzing the feedback can often feel like a daunting task. How can you streamline the process while ensuring actionable insights?
You use the right CXM tool that collects and measures both perception and fact-based customer data to give answers to critical questions.
Our Encompass-CX tool is geared towards high-value, 1:1 relationships — the 20% of your clients that drive 80% of your revenue. It uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis to predict each individual buyer's future behavior and has an AI coaching engine to tailor the account team's approach to the specific needs of those buyers.
Importantly because we focus on each individual buyer rather than a segment average, our clients don't try to aggregate responses into categories of insight, rather Encompass-CX allows them to leverage the granular feedback to deliver a truly unique, 1:1 experience tailored to each buyer.
Ultimately, perception-based surveys are meant to show the customers they are valuable. It allows you to understand your buyer's perception and to build Trusted Advisor relationships. Keeping these goals in mind while conducting a survey has an exceptional impact on the company’s present and future.
Ready to understand your buyer's perception through perception-based surveys?
