Customer Support Leaders
Customer Support Leaders
266: The Art of Crafting Impactful Survey Questions; with Nick Zeisler
Prepare to be enlightened as we sit down with the incomparable Nick Zeisler, or Zee as we fondly call him, for a riveting discussion on the essential role of Voice of the Customer (VOC) programs. This episode promises to transform your approach to customer feedback, from mere data points to actionable insights that can prevent your company from breaking its brand promise. Zee passionately dissects the futility of feedback collection without intent, emphasizing the profound power of VOC when it's used to cultivate genuine customer relationships and improve response rates to surveys.
Together, we unravel the intricacies of leveraging customer insights to elevate your offerings, steering clear of the notorious 'faster horse' pitfalls. We'll reflect on how visionaries like Steve Jobs and Henry Ford navigated customer needs, exploring the delicate art of crafting survey questions that resonate with your brand's core values. The conversation doesn't stop there—we also examine cultural nuances in satisfaction scoring and the strategic use of targeted questions. Join me, Charlotte Ward, and Zee for an episode that will not only challenge your perceptions but equip you with the expertise to refine your brand through the eyes of those who matter most—your customers.
Hello and welcome to episode 266 of the Customer Support Leaders podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward Today. Welcome Nick Zeisler talking about good VOC questions. I'd like to welcome back to the podcast today, nick Zeisler. Zee, it's so lovely to have you back.
Nick Zeisler:I've missed you. I've missed you. We've had celestial events since we last spoke.
Charlotte Ward:Oh, my goodness, and I have passed into your continental landmass to view said celestial events.
Nick Zeisler:That's right, that's right. The sun came back out and there was Charlotte, something like that. That's how I think of it.
Charlotte Ward:Yeah, we are talking about the solar eclipse of the 8th of april, of course, uh, ships that pass in the night. I? I didn't actually come and see you, unfortunately, but here we are. This is making up for it. Um, and you were telling me just before I hit record that you were on a bit of a kick. What?
Nick Zeisler:is the key. Yeah, I am. I'm I describe, in fact, as being on a tear. I don't know when this will publish, but tomorrow, here in Denver, I'm going to go in front of a group of people and I'm going to talk about how important it is to act upon the insights that you get from your Voice of the Customer program. And I'm not here to beat up anybody's Voice of the Customer program. I'm not here to what is it that they say? Shite all over NPS, welcome to the uk, everybody, all right. Yeah, uh, I'm not. You know, I'm not a huge fan of that, but I don't even care about that.
Nick Zeisler:Whatever you're doing and however you're gathering customer insights, you're probably well, no, it's not fair to say well, okay, sure, what the heck? You're probably it wrong. And the reason if you are doing it wrong I would argue that it's likely if you were doing it wrong is because you hadn't thought about why you're doing it in the first place. Oh, we need the KPI. Oh, we need a number we need the CEO wants to know how we're doing, how we're doing right.
Charlotte Ward:Data for data's sake, right.
Nick Zeisler:Yeah, yeah, 100%. Right, data for data's sake, right, yeah yeah, A hundred percent. But you know it's doing it mindlessly like that. That affords the opportunity to just ask a stupid question and get a stupid answer or, more importantly, a useless answer. If you think about, the reason that you have VOC in the first place is to identify ways in which you are not delivering on your brand promise. That should be, by the way, the heart and soul of your entire CX system and program and everything you do anyway. But given that the VOC customer insights function is like the doorway into your CX program, why are we not thinking about okay, can you please identify for us things that suck about how we deliver, so that we can go fix them?
Nick Zeisler:I put up something the other day on LinkedIn that said people are always asking me how do we improve the response rate to our surveys? We just don't have enough responses. Like well, if you're not doing anything with them, what does more do for you anyway? But here's a great way to get more responses and get more engagement on the survey invitations that you send out is to start that email with hey, thanks for being a customer, et cetera, et cetera. Last year, our customers told us that we sucked at this, this and this.
Nick Zeisler:So, we changed this, this and this, and now we're doing much better, we hope. By the way, can you help us continue to improve by telling us other ways in which we suck, so that we can work on those things this year. Now notice that that begs a question that you actually did something about what your customers told you.
Charlotte Ward:You sucked at which requires you to have taken action in the first place, that's the whole.
Nick Zeisler:Yeah, yeah. And you know, I don't care if you are hiring one of these super expensive survey companies which, of course, we all know the big, the big names out there or whether you're just, every once in a while, get on the phone and call one of your customers and, hey, what do you think and how things going? And then you, you know, bring in some intern from the local community college once a month to plunk it into an Excel spreadsheet. Even if you're doing it free like that, you're wasting resources and time, you're wasting your customer's attention if you're not going to act on it. Charlotte, You're 100% right, it should be. All of these insights should be sought with the intent to take action on them. That's going to drive your curiosity, that's going to drive your purpose towards it and, quite frankly, you're going to probably ask cooler and better questions.
Charlotte Ward:Very true, very true. I'm going to go one step further on something you said there. Imagine that.
Nick Zeisler:Right off the cliff, both of us. I'm with you. I'm with you, Charlotte.
Charlotte Ward:Just when we thought we could go no further, here we are. You said that we are wasting time and resources, and our customers' time and resources. I'd go a step further and say that actually what you are doing is damaging that relationship if you go to all that effort of seeking their opinion and not making them feel heard.
Nick Zeisler:Then just flush it Right, absolutely. I think I read it in a book somewhere.
Charlotte Ward:He's looking at a book that you write.
Nick Zeisler:The anecdote. The anecdote how, if, if you invite people over for a dinner party and you say please let me know if there are any sort of dietary restrictions you have, and then you're like whatever, like peanuts for everybody.
Nick Zeisler:It's like, okay, well, no, that's why did you ask if you weren't going to do anything? And you're right, it damages that relationship. I've asked you, I've told you and here's the thing your opinion is very important to us, Charlotte. That's the email you're going to get from somebody, right? We love your feedback, we value. We value your feedback just as just as much as when you're sitting on a waiting for customer support. They value your time while they've got you waiting. We value your feedback and then they show they don't show that they value it because they don't do anything with it they take no action.
Charlotte Ward:Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more. You know, I have this ambition, um, and I know that I've voiced it on many articles and I probably on this podcast, because they're. This podcast is complete, unfiltered. Charlotte's opinions about support and CX and everything customer.
Charlotte Ward:That's why there are all the bleeps in it, yeah right, you wouldn't believe the edits, but it is unfiltered, I promise. Pretty much I have expressed this opinion. I have this dream. I have a dream, zee, that I find the right way to build and deliver a survey to customers that has no numbers attached to it, and obviously you can do that in just an email and an intern, as you just described. But you know when we're talking at volume, I would love to find a way to just ask an open question and process the responses in a meaningful and kind of you know, systematic way. Yeah, I can call up 10 customers a week but that's hugely intensive. But I would love to just, you know, say, hey, is there anything you'd like to tell us? Like that's what the survey question should be.
Nick Zeisler:You know that's. That's great. A couple of things. First of all, what an incentive to to take action on it If you're going to put that much effort into actually getting it. Maybe we make it too easy. Sorry, medallia and Qualtrics. Maybe if we stop using these automated system we'd value more the work it takes to get the voice of the customer and maybe we take more action on it.
Nick Zeisler:It'd make it more personal to hold on. Wait a second. I think we're uncovering something here as well, but you know that that those questions that you'd ask. I remember it was several years ago that Nate Brown asked uh, if you could only ask one question on a survey, what would it be? And I said I think it was something along the lines of think back to your last interaction with our brand, what sucked most about it and what would you do to improve it. I guess that's two questions, but something like that what sucked most?
Nick Zeisler:about your last interaction with us.
Charlotte Ward:Yeah, yeah, I think it's interesting. Actually, in the second half of that question, which we will say is one question it's two questions really, but we'll call it one um, asking your customers what they would suggest we do to improve it, but tell me, tell me if you think genuinely, now, several years on from having having put that suggestion out there of your single question, um, should our customers tell us how to make things better?
Nick Zeisler:you're thinking of pandora's box and hands of worms and other metaphors about oh my gosh, here's what they want I'm thinking of being like the steve jobs of cx.
Charlotte Ward:You know, it's steve jobs always. I can't remember the exact quote, but he always said something like or even henry ford, more famously even, perhaps if I'd asked customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse. You know, um, I can't, steve jobs said something similar and I can't remember it, but but you know, I think like if, if that question what should we do to make it better is going to elicit faster horse responses, then are we going to deliver actually the thing customers really want for an experience?
Nick Zeisler:I think that's a fair point. But on the other hand, I would lean into our marketing department. Our marketing department, each one of our marketing departments has put a lot of money and a lot of effort and a lot of time, a lot of gray matter work, into identifying a brand promise. Now, ideally, the selection of that brand promise had some sort of research behind it. They just didn't say, hey, this sounds like a good thing. I'm the new Steve Jobs and now I've discovered what everybody wants. So you've decided that you are the ease of use brand, or you're the discount brand, or you're the luxury brand, or you're the hottest new thing in technology brand, whatever your brand is.
Nick Zeisler:I think you can frame the question that you ask that way You're the hottest new thing in technology brand, whatever your brand is.
Charlotte Ward:I think you can frame the question that you ask that way, and actually I guess customers are going to come to you with that expectation anyway, right? So they are going to say I want it cheaper or faster or whatever in the context of your promise. Yeah, no-transcript.
Nick Zeisler:Hey, this is what's so important about it. How could we have made the experience you had more in line with that brand? Now you've got them thinking in the way of like oh well, you know, it broke three days afterwards, or yeah well, you know, you say you're easy to work with, but I can never find on the place on your website where I can see my bill or whatever the thing might be, it's like okay well, if you ask me, in that framing I might give you something more valuable than just say, well, this should all be leather bound or something like that.
Nick Zeisler:It's like, well, no, I can help guide that feedback if I'm reminding you that, hey, this is why we are different from our competitor. We know that when you buy from us, it might cost a little bit more, but we also have the higher quality than our competitors. What do you think about our quality? Now, you're even putting in their minds that, yeah, I do spend more on you. You better be higher quality and then you'll get more direct, right, yeah, and the quality isn't better because the little flap thing broke off on whatever the deal, and here's the problem. So there's your lack of quality, right there. That's something you should work on. Oh well, thanks, because you kind of asked from that perspective.
Charlotte Ward:Yeah, yeah, I like that. I have a slight concern that when I calibrate that against my dream, it doesn't feel an open enough question. But I understand where you're going because, as you said right at the top, you're validating what you promise. And you said right at the top, you're validating what you, what you promise and, um, you're finding ways in which you can get closer to that promise. So I, I do understand that. I, I think that, um, I'm gonna mull that over actually for a couple. Maybe next time we talk I'll have mulled sufficiently and I'll come back with my more complete thoughts on that. But I can see where you're going. I like the idea. It feels a bit wordy as a question as a survey.
Nick Zeisler:Yeah, and that's not. That's not like z at all no, not at all.
Charlotte Ward:Not at all, um but. But on the other hand, I mean one really targeted question surely is better than a 20 part survey where they're all meaningless anyway, right, and?
Nick Zeisler:they're all meaningless anyway. And they're all rankings from 0 to 5 or 1 to 10 or whatever.
Charlotte Ward:Okay, yeah, yeah.
Nick Zeisler:I don't know, Was that experience a 6 for me or was it a 7? I don't know. And then everybody's got that professor that never gives A pluses right.
Charlotte Ward:Yeah, they're usually the Brits Speaking for my people. Yeahmillennium, just to show my age a little. I was working a frontline support job where we were part of our bonus structure a very small bonus structure, meager as it was sure part of our bonus structure, you know very small bonus structure was Meager as it was sure. Yeah, it was meager as it was.
Nick Zeisler:It was CSAT you have to get out of like a really good measuring to tell whatever this difference is going to be.
Charlotte Ward:But it was agent by agent, csat, and I know damn well I was doing a good job, I know all the people around me were doing a good job. But in british call center the average c-sat was something like I don't know 4.1, and in the us it was 4.8 consistently, because brits almost never give five out of five. It or at least back then, like that, certainly seemed to be the case. I mean, it was just I'd struggle, I'm british, I'd struggle to give five out of. I mean, it was just I'd struggle. I'm British, I'd struggle to give five out of five, even if it was damn good.
Nick Zeisler:That's why it's so rare for y'all to get the Olympics. That's true. That's true. That's why they love to hold the Olympics in the States.
Charlotte Ward:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A few more perfect scores on things, yeah Well, that's a nice thought to end on, isn't it that everybody in the US gets a trophy one way or another?
Nick Zeisler:Yeah, but they don't always get the sale, they don't always keep the customer. That's the problem. Yeah that is the problem.
Charlotte Ward:That is the problem. Yeah, absolutely, Absolutely, Z. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for just dropping in and swinging by with your what was it? You're on a bit of a tear or a kick or something, but did this help? I'm an old man yelling at clouds over here. Yeah, shaking the fist. Yeah, exactly, Exactly. Yeah, we're all getting there. I think Was this somewhat cathartic? Do you feel a little better?
Nick Zeisler:I feel as though I've let it out. Don't let's wait for the next eclipse to do this again.
Charlotte Ward:We definitely won't. I will swing by before the next full moon, I'm sure at this point there's a promise, right? I'm not sure if that makes me a vampire or something.
Nick Zeisler:Well, they've got calendars for all of this.
Charlotte Ward:That's true. That's true. Well, it's been lovely to chat to you. Thank you so much. Come back soon, definitely. That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaderscom forward, slash 266 for the show notes and I'll see you next time.