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RightNow BRief: how to iMPRoVe SURVeY PARtiCiPAtioN BY LeVeRAgiNg BeSt PRACtiCeSthe toP 7’S of CUStoMeR feedBACk BeSt PRACtiCeS

©2008 RightNow Technologies. All rights reserved. RightNow and RightNow logo are trademarks of RightNow Technologies Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 8011

Created by RightNow engage Center of excellenceSusie Boyer, engage Center of excellence, Product Manager of Sales, Marketing, and feedbackMark Strong, engage Center of excellence, Senior trainer, Professional Services

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tABLe of CoNteNtS

Executive Summary .......... 1

Top 7 Best Practices for Question Creation .......... 2

Top 7 Best Practices for Survey Construction and Execution .......... 6

Top 7 Best Practices for Feedback Analytics .......... 12

Customer Success Story: J&P Cycles .......... 18

About the Authors .......... 20

About RightNow .......... 20

Appendix A: Sample CSAT Surveys .......... 21

RightNow BRief: the toP 7’S of CUStoMeR feedBACk BeSt PRACtiCeS

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In order to provide an excellent customer experience, companies must listen to the voices of their customers. RightNow clients occasionally ask how they can increase the response rate of their feedback surveys. Response rates are defined as “the number of completed surveys divided by the number of participants invited to take the survey.” This RightNow brief provides best practices intended to help increase survey response rates. Although this was written specifically with RightNow Feedback in mind, these best practices are relevant regardless of which enterprise feedback tool you are using.

This brief is divided into three areas: best practices for question creation, survey construction and execution, and feedback analytics. Special sections are included for CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) - Closed Incident Surveys best practices and the key feedback reports. J&P Cycles also shares their success story of how they are listening and taking action in response to the voice of their customers, using RightNow Feedback.

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THE TOP 7 BEST PRACTICES FOR QUESTION CREATION

A key element for gathering feedback is how you ask your questions. Words mean different things to different people so the intent is to write questions that will be interpreted in the same way by each recipient. Before you start creating questions, make sure you clearly define the goals and target audience of the survey. After you define these, follow these top seven best practices for creating questions:

1. Relevant The first step in creating any survey is deciding what you are trying to learn. The goals of the survey will determine who you will survey and what you will ask them. If your goals are not clear, your results will not be either. Always remember who your audience is and write your questions for them. Do not create a question where the answers are not relevant to the audience. The more relevant the question, the more likely the recipient will respond.

2. Short and SweetKeep your questions short and clear. Respondents are less likely to answer if the question is too long or they do not understand how they should answer. Keep question sentences and answer choices short and concise. A good question only asks for one bit of information and should be only one dimension. Do not use a question that has another question embedded within it. If you see the word “and” or “or” in your question, there is a good chance that your question may be inconclusive. For example, if a customer services department asks, “Were you satisfied with your wait time and the knowledge of the agent that helped you?”, how will you know that the answer “no” means the respondent was unhappy with the wait time or was it that the agent was not knowledgeable?

If the list of answer categories is long and unfamiliar, it is difficult for respondents to evaluate all of them. One way to keep questions short and sweet is to utilize a matrix style question—grouping questions that utilize the same answer choices together often makes it easier for the respondent to answer the question. See the below image for a sample of a matrix style question, and notice that it is really five questions all in one.

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3. StraightforwardThis seems like a straightforward concept, but is a common mistake with surveys. Make sure your questions are straightforward by avoiding bias, leading, or hypothetical questions or difficult concepts. Present your questions neutrally and ensure your question does not imply a desired answer. The wording of a question is extremely important. We are striving for objectivity in our surveys and, therefore, must be careful not to lead the respondent into giving the answer we would like to receive. Leading questions are usually easily spotted because they use negative phrases such as “Wouldn’t you like…?” Or “Don’t you agree that….?” Also avoid double negatives as respondents can easily be confused trying to decipher the meaning of a question that uses two negative words.

Start with questions that are meaningful but not threatening. For example, when conducting a survey to find out how current customers feel about your company’s return policy, start by asking whether the respondent has ever returned an item that they purchased. The question is straightforward and the answer options are limited to either yes or no. It’s easy to understand, easy to answer, visually simple, and doesn’t require a lot of work on the respondent’s part.

Also avoid creating questions that are hard to recall. If you ask “How many times in the last month…” versus “How many times in the last year…”, you will get a more accurate response from the “within the last month” question—as respondents are more likely to recall events within the past month but the response becomes increasingly unreliable the further back you go.

4. Use Everyday LanguageUse simple words that aren’t vague. Design questions so that you get a precise answer. If users misinterpret your writing, their answers will be misleading. Avoid jargon, company acronyms, or obscure terms. Do not use uncommon words or compound sentences. Abbreviations are okay if you are absolutely certain that every single respondent will understand their meanings. If there is any doubt at all, do not use the abbreviation. Asking a question about AGI may be okay if all the respondents are accountants, but it would not be a good question for the general public.

Confusing questions will only lead to confused participants, which will lead to unreliable answers or even the participant closing the survey because they do not understand the questions. Survey recipients may have a variety of backgrounds; therefore, use simple language and relax your grammatical standards slightly. For example, “who” may be okay to use in many instances although “whom” may be grammatically correct.

Review your questions to be sure that they could not be misinterpreted—especially if any respondents may not be native speakers of the language the survey is written in. Many words have different meanings to different people and some concepts like “time” and “distance” are subjective. Complex wording or structure may be confusing making your results less precise.

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5. Careful Answer SelectionsHow many times have you taken a survey and your answer is “none of the above”, “other”, or “don’t know” and these are not options? Keep answer selections to a minimum while still accommodating all possible answers. Asking a question that doesn’t accommodate all possible responses can confuse and frustrate the respondent. A good question leaves no ambiguity in the mind of the respondent. As an example of this, a question asks, “What brand of computer do you own?” and the only answer choices available are “A. Dell” or “B. Apple”. There are several issues with this. What if the respondent doesn’t own a computer? What if he owns a different brand of computer? What if he owns both a Dell and an Apple?

Also make sure that the answers are all mutually exclusive and do not overlap. If you have a question asking the participant to select an age range, and your answer choices are 16-25, 25-40, 40-60, and 60 and Over—what answer would a 25, 40, or 60 year old select? They match more than one answer. The correct way to write the answer choices for this would be 16-25, 26-40, 41-60, and Over 60.

Oftentimes, users are biased towards the first answers they encounter in a survey question. They may choose the first answer due to the fact that it applies to them even though there may be another option that is more appropriate. One can guard against this certain bias which may lead to false results by randomizing the choices in a survey ensuring that choices are seen in various orders for different survey takers. In RightNow, if “Randomize Choices” is checked, then the answer choices will be displayed to respondents in a random order. If the check box is not selected, the choices are displayed in the order in which they are listed in the choice list.

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6. Clearly Defined LabelsIf you aren’t clear about the labels for the answer choices, then the question is worthless and can be thrown away. A common mistake we see is a question asking to rank level of satisfaction on a scale from 1 to 5 but no clarification whether 1 is very satisfied or if 5 is very satisfied. If it is not clearly stated, some respondents may respond with 1’s and others with 5’s but you will not know what the customer meant if you do not clearly specify it. No matter what type of question you ask, make sure it is clear what the answer choices labels mean.

Before you create your questions, decide what kind of rating labels you will want to use. For example, for “level of satisfaction”, use a 5-point scale with responses ranging from “very satisfied” to “very dissatisfied”; or you may want to use the Likert Scale (which is the most widely used scale in survey research ) to measure “level of agreement”, where the response range from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”.

Often, it doesn’t matter which labels you choose as long as they are clear to the recipients and you are using them consistently. Changing rating scales mid-survey may be very confusing to respondents and result in unreliable results or even decreased response rates as respondents may close the survey without finishing if they get confused.

There is debate within the industry on whether using an even or odd number point scale is better. With a 5-point scale, there is typically a neutral answer, while a 4-point scale may force the respondent to choose either positively or negatively. Studies show more recipients are comfortable with a neutral option than being forced to choose (which may make recipients just drop off if they do not have a strong opinion either way). Therefore, a 5-point scale is generally better than a 4-point scale. With a 10-point scale, there are enough choices that both the 5 and 6 choices are close enough to neutral to make the 10-point scale acceptable.

7. Watch Open-Ended QuestionsWe often hear executives comment that the most valuable feedback they receive in surveys is in the free text comments section. While this information is difficult to quantify it provides deep insights into the customer experience. Include no more than three to five open-ended questions, though one is usually enough. Although they can elicit some important insight, they also require a lot of respondent time and effort. Don’t use them unless you plan to

An example of the typical five-level Likert scale answers choices.

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review them. Never make open-ended answers mandatory as some respondents may rather close the survey than be forced to respond. Having open-ended responses adds color to your survey results and lets the respondent express their feedback in their own natural language and tone. Here are a few examples of open-ended questions:

· “Any additional comments about your experience:”

· “Please tell us any suggestions for improvement that you may have:”

· “What products of services were you looking for that were not found on our website?”

· “What did you like/dislike about your recent customer experience?”

Additionally, free text customer comments can be very effective internally within an organization to support initiatives that you are trying to move forward. As an example, if you are trying to get resourcing to improve your automated phone system, insert compelling customer comments received from free text questions into internal communications or presentations to support your goal such as: “See what our customers are saying about this: ‘Great support once I finally got to an agent after being stuck in your phone system’ or ’I never got help as I couldn’t figure out how to get to a live agent.’”

THE TOP 7 BEST PRACTICES FOR SURVEY CONSTRUCTION AND EXECUTION

Just as critical as having well-written questions are how you put those questions together in the survey and roll it out. In order to get a higher response rate, the survey must be constructed and executed wisely. By following these top seven best practices, your participants will be more likely to respond.

1. Be Well-TimedSending your survey in a timely manner adds relevance and enhances accuracy. People are more likely to remember the quality of any interaction shortly after that interaction occurred; therefore, sending surveys within 24 hours keeps that interaction fresh and will increase chances of getting a response.

Consider when people are most likely to receive and read the invitation and when they will have time to respond to it. Getting to know your specific survey audience and when their down time and busy periods are may take time, but by using testing and reviewing results you may see a trend. Typically, Fridays are when people are getting ready for the weekend and Mondays are when they are recovering from the weekend. Likewise, if you send your email invite overnight or early in the morning, you may run the risk of being lumped into the amount of spam that may be generated late at night. Studies have shown that best time to email is mid-week in the afternoon, although every audience is different and may require some testing to see what time is best for your organization.

2. Get to the PointKeep your surveys short and do not seek insight on multiple topics. Studies have found that only 3–12 survey questions should be used to ensure that customers do not abandon the survey mid-way. If more information is required or survey scores are low, an additional detailed survey may be sent as a follow-up. It is also a best practice to state the number of questions in the survey and the estimated time for completion upfront to increase customer

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response rate (e.g. “Please help us by taking this short 3 question survey”). The primary reasons participants drop off of a survey is when it is too long or not relevant.

As a general rule, think about exactly the kind of information every single question in the survey will provide you. If you have a question that you are not sure about, drop it. Do not ask questions just because you think the information may come in handy at some point. If you already have some information about the customer (e.g. name, age, gender), do not make them enter this information again. Just pre-populate these form fields and let the participant verify the information. Within RightNow Feedback, just add a HTML content area that utilizes form fields to verify the information (see When To Use A Merge Field, Form Field, or a Survey Question below).

Also make sure to put the questions in a logical order. One question may influence how the participant judges the next question. Start the survey with questions that are likely to sound interesting and attract the respondent’s attention. Save questions that might be difficult or sensitive for later. It is a good idea to ask general questions upfront and more specific questions later. For example, you should avoid asking a series of questions about a particular product without first asking if they own that product (unless you already know they own that product). Group similar questions together and use different pages and branching to designate different sections of the survey.

Not only should you make sure the survey is short, but also consider your invitation message to participate in the survey. The invitation message should be concise and straightforward. Include in the invitation the purpose of the survey, give a reason to participate, inform of anonymity and confidentiality, if that matters, and how the results may be used. Make sure to have an enticing and clear subject line for the message as well.

WHEN TO USE A MERGE FIELD, FORM FIELD, OR A SURVEY QUESTION

Merge fields are used to personalize the invitation message or the survey by merging in a field that exists in the database. Examples include First Name, Last Name, or Incident #. Form fields are used to capture or verify contact data from the contacts table. Merge fields and form fields are added to surveys within RightNow by selecting “Add HTML Content”. Note that unlike form fields, survey questions are used to capture information for analysis that will be stored in the survey question tables and not directly on the contact record.

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3. Keep It PersonalThe target audience will be more likely to respond if you keep the survey relevant. Personalizing surveys based on products, categories, or dispositions enhances customer experience and increases response rate. Using segmentation to target surveys based on demographics will help to keep the survey more meaningful and will provide better insights into your customers.

Use branching functionality to make sure you ask questions that are relevant. For example, if you ask on page 1 of a survey, “What products do you use?”; then on page two only show the questions relevant to that product. Another example would be to ask general questions about satisfaction and if the participant says they were very dissatisfied, you can take them to another page of questions to dig deeper into the issue. You can even create an incident to follow up on the issue and then direct them to a Thank You page. As part of RightNow CX, the customer experience suite, you can easily leverage a single customer repository for segmentation and powerful workflow to follow up and take action. This is a sample flow within RightNow for that scenario:

Also, make sure to personalize the survey invitation by using dynamic content. Within RightNow Feedback, three main areas of dynamic content include:

· Merge fields -merge contact fields into the text of the content, such as name, address, phone number.

· Merge reports -merge in any information that is available via a RightNow Analytics report into a table, list or single value, even one-to-many relationships, such as recently closed incidents or product registered.

· Conditional sections -a section of content to display only if the contact meets certain criteria, such as gold or platinum members.

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4. Take ActionClose the loop. Not only do the participants want to be heard, they want to know what you have done with their feedback. Therefore, we recommend that the results of every survey be fed into a process to take actionable results. For example, if the total survey score is less than x, create an incident and follow up with the customer by phone.

According to a Gartner report, while 95% of companies collect feedback, only 10% actually deploy and use the feedback. Even fewer (less than 5%) tell their customers what they have done with that feedback. Being one of these companies that tells their customers what they are doing with the feedback can be a good way to differentiate from your competition.

Customers are also much more likely to take the survey next time if they know you actually did something with the information they gave the first time. One option is to trigger an end-of-survey email thanking the customer for providing feedback and letting the customer know what actions will be taken due to the feedback. You may also redirect customers to your support site or knowledge base to promote self-service.

Within RightNow, there are many actions that can be automated based on the customer response or profile. By using RightNow’s decisioning in advanced survey mode, you can branch the survey to take distinct actions based on the responses or characteristics of the contact that is taking the survey. You can send a notification to a manager, redirect to your customer support site, create an incident, opportunity or lead, add to a contact list, set a field on the contact record, send a follow-up email or survey, or even execute an external event for a custom action.

5. MotivateIn the movie, “Office Space”, the character, Peter Gibbons says, “It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care.” This can be true of your customers. The majority of the time, you need to give your customers a reason to care to give you the feedback. Customers want to know “what’s in it for me” if they take the time to provide the feedback.

Research shows that offering participants free, low-valued merchandise, coupons, or even cash incentives to take the survey, is not as effective at increasing response rates or building long-term relationships as offering more significant reasons such as acting on their feedback and communicating that the action taken. Coupons, gifts, and raffles may be nice and provide more reasons to have additional touchpoints with the customer, but just letting customers know that someone is actually acting on their feedback might be the best incentive of all. Cash is not recommended and can be difficult to distribute. Customers want to improve their experience for the next time, especially if they were not satisfied.

Requesting participation in advance for a later survey, during personal contact with the customer, is also recommended. Encouraging agents to mention the survey will at least give the participants a heads-up that the invitation message is coming and the participant may be more likely to watch for it and respond.

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6. Limit FrequencyOver-surveying will reduce response rates and willingness to participate in the future. Ideally, you will want to survey your customers often enough to get the information needed but not so often as to upset the customer. For customer satisfaction surveys, it will depend on the frequency of the interactions with the customers. If you haven’t had any interaction within the past year, a survey may not be welcome. If you surveyed your customer yesterday, sending another survey today may annoy your customer. Within RightNow Feedback, using the “Limit frequency of communication” and “Limit recency of communication” features can help ensure you are not over-communicating.

7. Optimize & TestProofing the survey is extremely important. Send a proof of the survey to a small group of people. After they complete the survey, brainstorm with them to see if there were any issues. Make sure they evaluate for the quality of the questions, the length or the time to complete the survey, and the entire flow of the survey and invitation message.

Learn from past results. Someone (George Santayana, loosely quoted) once said, “Those who fail to learn from their mistakes are destined to repeat them.” That is true with your surveys, too. If a survey question gave you no valuable insight, then you shouldn’t ask that question again. If you learn you get better response rates on Tuesdays than you do on Fridays, then you should stop sending on Fridays. Make sure to use analytics to learn from your results.

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CSAT/CLOSED INCIDENT SURVEYS ADDITIONAL BEST PRACTICES

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) surveys can provide information about a customer’s satisfaction with a company, a particular product or service, or with a recent support issue. Often closed incident surveys are used for CSAT with a support issue. Our customers often ask about best practices particular to customer satisfaction and closed incident surveys via the phone, email, and chat channels. The good news is all the same basic principles apply (especially timing, relevancy, personalization, and length) and here are a few extra suggestions:

· Do not ask about another topic EXCEPT for the issue that was submitted.

· Send the survey within 8-24 hours of the incident closing. Give enough time to make sure the issue is truly resolved but recent enough that the customer is more likely to remember the quality of interaction which will increase the chances of getting a response.

· The invitation message to participate in the survey should reference the issue in question. Include the reference number and the subject of the issue.

· Your service team and your marketing team may not be the same people. Be sure you have collaboration and understanding of how the rules will trigger surveys.

· Be sure your agents are trained to review previous survey information before dealing with a new incident.

· Consider designing agent workspaces to accept phone surveys by proxy. Capturing information in the moment can provide excellent results although depending on the type of questions, the participant might be more honest responding through the web instead of directly to an agent.

· Incorporate survey results in the agent desktop so agents can understand their own performance.

See Appendix A for a sample customer satisfaction survey template.

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THE TOP 7 BEST PRACTICES FOR FEEDBACK ANALYTICS

Understanding the information you want to gather from your surveys is critical to designing them correctly. Establishing your measurements for success and for follow-up actions will allow you to efficiently report on those successes. The following best practices are more specific to RightNow CX than the previous best practices, although they may be useful to think about no matter what tool you are using.

1. SCORE! A great way to quickly evaluate survey results is to add score values to the responses. The score value is used to assign a relative weight to each choice and allows for easy calculations which can be used to trigger rules or actions based on the contact’s answers. Within RightNow Feedback, scoring is built in. Put in a score when setting up choice question types rather than trying to do manual calculations after the fact.

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2. Chart It One of the easiest ways to look at survey results is with a chart. A line graph is great for showing trends or specific data values, a pie graph is best for seeing how something is divided among different groups and a bar graph makes for easy comparisons. Use many of the out-of-the-box reports that display results in a chart, or create custom reports with charts using RightNow’s easy-to-use Chart Wizard.

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3. Tell a StoryEnsure your results tell a story. Ask yourself the following questions when reviewing your data before sharing your results in a formal report: What is the key learning objective? What insight are you looking for? What will you recommend? How do you tell the story? When requesting management approval to take action, present them with data in a way that makes your point. Present all the data but highlight key points and then state action steps and the expected results.

One way to make sure your story is correct is by verifying that you do not have responses skewing your data. Duplicates, responses where the participant misunderstood the question, and outliers may be better off being removed from the results. Using RightNow Feedback’s survey response exclusion feature allows you to capture all results but only report on the results that are valuable to help ensure data accuracy.

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4. Organize and ArchiveThink about report filters when setting up your questions and survey folder hierarchies. This helps make searching/filtering more intuitive later when running reports. Before creating reports, understand the level of data being used; is it being analyzed at an individual customer level, or is the data being used at an aggregate level (e.g. by account, by call center, by region)? Survey scores can be viewed by contact, by demographic (age, location, etc.), by type of incident, or by agent. When you have folders set up properly it’s easier to find question or survey names in the search pop up when running a report.

Another key point is to create folders for archived questions or surveys. Do not delete previously used questions or surveys. When you do this you will lose historical data. It’s best to move unused questions/surveys to an archived folder to preserve your collected data. Also, keep in mind that if you significantly change a survey or question you have now possibly skewed the responses previously submitted.

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5. Analyze Free Text ResponsesFree text can provide some of the most valuable insight into a customer’s satisfaction and key areas of concerns. However, they can be more difficult to analyze than multiple choice questions that can be counted and included in graphs. There is no point in asking free text questions if you do not review the responses. Use a tool that will provide an easy method to spot trends in text responses and use keywords to rate the response as positive or negative.

RightNow Feedback incorporates RightNow’s SmartSense ability with our topic monitoring tool to easily analyze unstructured text responses. Text responses are automatically grouped based on similar content and analyzed for themes. Topic monitoring allows you to view the distribution of responses across themes and drill down into themes, sub-themes, or to read individual responses. Themes are accessed through the survey results tab and the topic monitoring report in analytics. The Topic Monitoring Wizard is best suited when there is a lot of data to decipher, as it becomes more useful in identifying themes and keywords as the amount of free text responses increases. RightNow’s SmartSense technology uses words and phrases to determine whether the theme is positive or negative allowing reviewers to easily sort the responses and prioritize.

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6. Trend itThe ability to see a trend in the responses received can help a business plan for the future. With the majority of surveys, especially customer satisfaction, it is helpful to see how ratings change over time (day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, quarter-to-quarter, or even year-to-year). In order to effectively track trends, ensure the questions and rating scales remain consistent over time. Within RightNow Analytics, use reports like “Question Response Trend” to identify improvement or decline trends in areas of interest such as customer satisfaction.

7. Automate Remove manual steps by scheduling reports to be automatically sent to management weekly or monthly. You can choose to send the report when an exception has been met in order to quickly escalate when satisfaction levels dip below an acceptable level. RightNow Analytics makes it easy to schedule reports to send out automatically, removing the need to spend time in the system running reports.

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KEY RIGHTNOW FEEDBACK REPORTS

RightNow Feedback Analytic Report Key Metric Secondary Metric Why useful?

Survey Summary Dashboard (3 reports in one dashboard: Broadcast Survey Summary, Transactional Survey Summary, and Website Link Survey Summary)

· Broadcast: Sent vs. Opened vs. Completed

· Transactional: Sent vs. Opened vs. Started vs. Completed

· Website Link: Started vs. Completed

Pinpoint your most effective and least effective surveys.

Invitation Message Delivery Analysis Number sent and delivered Bounces of various types If the invitation mailings are not reaching their audience, this report helps you identify the problem.

Invitation Message Response Analysis Total opened Total clicks This report helps you see how much interest is being generated by your invitation mailings.

Survey Score Trend Total Responses for a survey over time

Average score for a survey over time

View if number of responses and scores for a survey are changing over time.

Question Response Trend Total responses for a survey question over time

Average score for a survey question over time

View if number of responses and scores for a survey question are changing over time.

Topic Monitoring Common words used in text responses

Details of each response Quickly gather information about the text responses without needing to read each individual response.

Survey Page Drop-Off Rate # of times a page of the survey was submitted

% of survey takers who abandoned the survey at each page

For multi-page surveys, identify which pages may cause a survey taker to abandon the survey.

CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY

J&P CYCLES CLOSES THE LOOP WITH ALL OF THEIR CUSTOMERS

J&P Cycles, established in 1979, is the largest provider of motorcycle aftermarket parts and accessories in the world. They are a multi-channel marketer through catalog, retail, web, and events. They offer the best service in their industry with free technical support for life, 24/7 customer service, a liberal returns policy, and utilizes RightNow Customer Portal for email support, support videos, feedback, and live chat. 98% of their customers would refer them to friends and family.

J&P Cycles processes 100% of their customer surveys through RightNow Feedback which includes web surveys, online general surveys, manual survey cards,

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and chat surveys. RightNow Feedback adds value to every department by providing automated survey reporting, participation trending, question trending, question and comment distribution, high level overviews, and departmental granular reports.

Closing the loop on every survey response is critical to J&P’s business. Indirect customer follow-up happens with all of the following departments:

· E-Commerce (usability, functionality)

· Purchasing / Merchandising (quality, availability)

· DC (shipping, packaging)

· Marketing (offer feedback, catalog fulfillment)

· Showroom (appearance, service, selection)

· Call Center (service, tech support)

· Sales (research, parts availability, selection)

Direct customer follow-up is mandatory as 100% of surveys become an incident and are reviewed. All surveys receive a response through either a canned or custom email, or even a personal phone call.

By utilizing RightNow Feedback, J&P Cycles is seeing heaps of benefits. Being able to organize and distribute survey feedback has led to organization process improvements in all departments. Their customer win back rate has increased due to quickly closing the loop with customers (an estimated five to ten customers saved per month). They estimate $50K in annual labor reduction by having a system to handle all feedback. Best of all, by listening to their customers, they are seeing an increase in sales (estimated $100K in sales in just year 1 of implementing RightNow Feedback).

Example J&P Cycles report confirming orders

arrive on time

J&P Cycles used exceptions to highlight survey responses that are poor (red)

or average (yellow) in order to easily see problem areas.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Susie Boyer, Engage Center of Excellence, Product Manager of Sales, Marketing, and Feedback, RightNow Technologies

With RightNow since 2004, Susie started off in Professional Services consulting with many customers implementing the early versions of RightNow Sales, Marketing, and Feedback. In 2007, she switched into a Product Manager role in order to have direct influence over product direction. Susie has contributed to creating several best practices resources based on her interactions with customers. She received her Bachelors of Science at Georgia Institute of Technology and her MBA at Georgia State University, both in Atlanta, Georgia. When not in the office, Susie can often be found skiing, playing tennis, hiking, or climbing a state’s highest point.

Mark Strong, Engage Center of Excellence, Senior Trainer Professional Services, RightNow Technologies

Introduced to RightNow as a client in 2003, Mark began his career at RightNow in 2004 as a Professional Services Consultant. In 2006, he switched into a Professional Services Operations role in order to train new employees and implement continuing education programs for existing employees. In 2007, he moved into a field training role to help launch RightNow 8 for employees and customers. Since 2008, Mark has been working in Education Services providing training to customers onsite and remotely. Mark is considered an expert by his peers and clients for his in-depth knowledge of the full RightNow CX suite including RightNow Sales, Marketing, Feedback, and Analytics. Based in New York, when Mark is not working, he can be found in the kitchen, in the pool, or spending time outdoors with his family.

ABOUT RIGHTNOW

RightNow (NASDAQ: RNOW) delivers the high-impact technology solutions and services organizations need to cost-efficiently deliver a consistently superior customer experience across their frontline service touchpoints. Approximately 1,900 corporations, government agencies, and institutions worldwide depend on RightNow to achieve their strategic objectives and better meet the needs of those they serve. RightNow is headquartered in Bozeman, Montana.

For more information, please visit www.rightnow.com.

RightNow is a registered trademark of RightNow Technologies, Inc. NASDAQ is a registered trademark of the NASDAQ Stock Market.

Contact us today to find out how we can help you create the best possible customer experience for your customers.

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APPeNdix ASAMPLe CSAt SURVeYS

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SAMPLE CSAT SURVEYS

Customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are two different things. Customer satisfaction is the measure of expectations being exceeded, met, or not met. Customer satisfaction surveys typically contain questions asking the recipient, “How satisfied are you with…?” Unfortunately, customer satisfaction typically has little to do with how loyal the customer is. A satisfied customer will stay with you until they find a better alternative while a loyal customer will stay with you through thick and thin. Customer loyalty asks questions like “How likely are you to recommend…?” or “How likely are you to use or buy…?” Although they are completely separate, both provide valuable information.

The following sample surveys focus on Customer Satisfaction and provides sample questions as guidance only. The more specific and focused the questions, the greater the chance the questionnaire will result in complete, honest answers and more actionable data. Therefore, please personalize the questions you ask based on your organization’s needs.

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