When McElroy decided to formalize our process of fielding periodic client surveys, I thought it was going to be simple. Heck, I’d be working with our customer service professional who has 15 years experience, and I was doing my research on the topic. She’s smart and I’m a quick study (mostly).

We made all the usual decisions about who would be surveyed, survey frequency, which online survey vendor to use, how we would structure the survey, the number of questions per survey, and then we carefully crafted our questions. I felt confident. We fielded our first survey using this shiny, new process and were pleased with the percentage of responses and the impressive number of comments respondents volunteered. Success!
In fact, we had put a sprinter in a long-distance race and called the race a win at 100 yards. Don’t get me wrong, we got great information from the very first survey, but the more I learn, the more I see how much further we have to go. We continue to hone questions to increase the value and validity of the results.

There was an interesting article recently in Marketing News, Get Full Value Out of Surveys, by Jon Harrington. Amidst other kernels of wisdom, was one that I found particularly interesting. “If you are running a successful customer satisfaction program, you may soon find that almost all of your customers will tell you they are ‘satisfied,’ with most ratings pegged near the top end of your scale. And they’ll keep on telling you that right up until they leave you for one of your competitors, whom they also find ‘satisfactory.’”

His primary points here:

·           In creating a good customer satisfaction survey, you need to ask questions about expectations, as well as satisfaction.

·           Certain expectations are so fundamental that they merely get you a seat at the table.

We gain so much from committing to a systematic client survey process. If you don’t already have such a program, I’d like to encourage you to put one in place. Surveys are just one component in striving for customer satisfaction excellence, and, this article focuses on only one subset of the variety of customer surveys possible. Nonetheless, this type of survey works well for even small companies or departments within companies. Use it to improve customer relationships, retention, product and/or service. You should have a long-term plan for the information you want to gather.

What do people get for taking the time? They should get a measurable payoff.

McElroy gets terrific insights into our clients’ worlds through systematic surveys. Good surveys allow us (and you) to craft a better product, service and experience for clients. Our clients’ reward for taking the time to complete a survey is the knowledge that McElroy will take action on any question we ask.

This article is intended for both the client- and vendor-side of the translation industry. So many clients face challenges similar to ours with regard to measuring their success in pleasing customers, be they internal or external. I compiled a checklist that you can use to develop good surveys, if you don’t already have your own system in place. Nearly everyone would like to know more about what their customers want and how to improve satisfaction, right?

I put together some expert tips for y’all. This checklist will make your results more useful.

Guidelines for creating successful customer surveys abound and professional survey firms offer the full range of services from a turnkey product to templates combined with analysis outputs. Nearly all the experts agree on the following:

1)         Identify your objective. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.

2)         Be prepared to act. Kind of similar to “don’t say it if you don’t mean it.

3)         Keep it short. More about why I think this is particularly important later.

4)         Use simple language. This isn’t supposed to be a test of your clients’ localization industry knowledge…unless of course, it is.

5)         Use a standard rating response structure. Resist the impulse to place the most favorable rating first!

6)         Organize your questions logically. Think of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and piñata parties. Believe me, respondents won’t try that hard.

7)         Don’t ask leading questions. You want to know the truth? Don’t laugh—ask a sales manager how unnatural this feels!

8)         Reward participants. (See below on how I think this applies to most B2B clients.)

9)         Be polite. Say “please” and “thank you”, and if you’re surveying clients in the deep South, “Ma’am” and “Sir” (ok, just kidding about the last part). You get the idea.

10)        Timing is everything. Would you fill out a survey Friday afternoon or Monday morning?

My thoughts:

þ          Reward everyone you asked to take the survey with the results AND the actions you plan to take based on the information. For those who didn’t respond the first time, seeing your action plan may lead them to participate the next time you ask. Include an invitation to continue the dialog when you announce results and proposed action items.

þ          Don’t try to do too much with any single survey. A survey may be broad or narrowly focused, but keep it brief. For the vendors reading this, remember, most translation/localization clients count this function as only one of many responsibilities, so if you would like a strong response rate, don’t tax their patience. We limit our surveys to under 12 questions that clients can answer in less than 5 minutes. Comment boxes are provided, but making it easy by letting prospects know it is just checking X number of boxes increases the response rate (and surprisingly, the comment rate).

þ          Don’t get discouraged. In the expert information about customer surveys most important points are consistently repeated, however, you’ll also find some directly conflicting advise, such as “ask open-ended questions” no wait, ask “close-ended questions”, or “send a reminder”, no “don’t pester”. I’d like to put these people in a room together!

þ          You don’t have a Fortune 500 budget and you don’t have to be an expert to field a decent survey. I think inviting clients to give you feedback is always better than not (even if you have to take some of it with a grain of salt until you know better what to ask and how to interpret responses).

McElroy’s response to our initial survey in our shiny, new process.

We recently asked you to participate in a brief survey to learn how to serve you better. We know how busy our clients are, so we appreciate that those of you who could, took the time to complete the survey. Out of 701 surveys sent, we received 163 responses, a rate of 23%. Highlights of the survey results and McElroy action items:

·           Quality was listed by an overwhelming 65 percent of respondents as the highest translation priority among choices that included deadlines, cost and customer service.

            ACTION: Agencies often develop reputations for stressing quality, price or turnaround time. While competitive in our pricing, we know that McElroy is not always the least expensive choice when prospective clients are selecting a translation vendor. This response, however, tells us that even as we consistently strive to improve other factors critically important to clients, the market we serve depends upon us to provide a very high-quality product.

·           60 percent of all respondents use only one translation vendor, and 84 percent have less than 10 percent of their time allocated to translation/localization activities.

            ACTION: McElroy respects the expectations these two statistics require. A large part of our success derives from offering solutions, care and stress relief to our clients who consider translation a complicated add-on to an already busy week. Your responses have spurred us to place an even higher priority on particular client-focused technology developments underway, such as improving the readability of online orders, creating the easiest possible online job status and history checking and providing customized client reports. Making translation/localization easier and even more streamlined will further minimize client resources used for oversight.

·           McElroy is responding with action items based on some illuminating client suggestions. After all, finding out how we can better serve our clients is our primary purpose for fielding this customer survey. Some suggestions that involve a combination of database, network and website technologies may take a little time, but these often reflected McElroy’s own IT project list.

            ACTION: Nearly all 163 respondents entered a comment into the suggestions field. 102 either had no suggestions for improvement or complimented our service/product, often with specifics. Not only do we appreciate these compliments, but they are an important source of information. Knowing what clients think our strengths are tells us what to continue doing.

McElroy staff reviewed the remaining suggestions very carefully to determine what clarification of processes or improvements in services will provide the greatest positive benefits for our clients. Most of these suggestions are categorized as follows, and WE ARE LISTENING:

1.         21 concerned communication including A) improving online job status reporting, B) advising of all turnaround options or customizing the way turnaround is stated, C) clarifying the McElroy point of contact, D) simplifying or clarifying order confirmation, and E) making sure all clients are aware of online ordering availability

ACTION: Updates to our automated job notification link have been made. It is more concise, and it now lists not just target language but also the target country when relevant to dialect choice. Account Managers have contacted clients to confirm each client’s McElroy point of contact. Many clients place orders and make estimate requests through our website, but we can also provide a customized order link for your desktop or company intranet to streamline the ordering process. Click here if you want to know more.

2.         10 requested faster turnaround times

ACTION: Done! Standard turnaround times for small- to mid-size jobs have been reduced by 30%. McElroy is very responsive to turnaround demands. Account Managers will carry the message that McElroy will do what it takes to meet mission critical deadlines. For “impossible” projects we will build teams of translators and editors. Translation team size is contingent on deadline requirements.

3.         8 suggested lower cost; 2 of these noted that our pricing was in line with other vendors

ACTION: We instituted systematic follow-up on estimates. We want to know if there are any specific areas where we need to sharpen the pencil and re-negotiate the cost basis for our work.

4.         Other suggestions included 2 for machine translation, 2 regarding formatting, 2 about invoicing, and one to make Project Manager Tina Cargile president of the company (ok, maybe the latter fits into a levity category, along with the one about making translations free, but we take your point)

ACTION: McElroy does offer “Human Assisted Machine Translation” for a wide range of Japanese patents. In this process, our translators edit a machine translation product. This offers midrange quality at a midrange price. Regarding “Tina for President”, sorry, but Tina declined the offer!

From General Manager Shelly Priebe

Again, thank you for your input. If you have more to share, don’t wait until the next survey. Click here and send your comments or pick up the phone and ask for me. 1-800-531-9977.

Regarding the first bullet point in our response, many experts will tell you that asking about quality is a non-starter, and perhaps they are right. Quality may just be one of those “expectations” in every customer’s mind. I suppose we asked because of the old adage in the translation industry that says a client can have the best in any two of the following, but not all three; quality, turnaround time, price.

We keep refining, narrowly focusing some surveys, while continuing to solicit an annual overview. Every survey is a snapshot in time. Also, survey questions are not one-size-fits-all, so ask the most critical questions in a variety of ways with successive surveys.

Why “the gentle art”? Like the gentle art of persuasion, fielding and analyzing a customer survey well requires active listening, really hearing what the other person is trying to say, not just what you want to hear.

A Few FREE Customer Survey Resources Available Online

Answer Central: 10 tips for online customer surveys written by a senior editor at American Demographics

Survey customers without invading their privacy: 7 tips protecting your clients trust is paramount

Tips for Getting the Most from Six Sigma Surveys offers examples with advise

CustomInsight.com has information on a range of survey topics

Reach Out and Ask Someone some additional golden nuggets

Boosting Your Online Survey Responses article written by co-vice presidents and general managers of Zoomerang

In addition, there are more great customer service, sales and marketing books out there than you can shake a stick at and many include solid customer survey information. 

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About the author: In Austin and with McElroy Translation for over eight years, Lisa Siciliani, Marketing Manager, handles a variety of responsibilities. “I'm the proverbial Jack of all trades which keeps me as busy as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs! Performing several marketing functions keeps my mind, such as it is, supple and creative.”