Customer Satisfaction Survey

Gaurav Bhatia
White Paper

MphasiS. All rights reserved.

Customer satisfaction is a key indicator of success of an organization. All activities of an organization revolve around meeting & satisfying the needs of its customers, but it is ironical that many do not have a clear measure of the satisfaction levels of customers serviced by the customer care / contact centers. This white paper presents methodologies for determining the customer satisfaction scores for the service rendered by your customer care / contact center operations. It also highlights some of the common mistakes made in conducting these surveys.

Customer Satisfaction Survey

Common Lacunaes in C-St Survey Some of the commonly seen lacunas in the C-Sat surveys conducted for your customer care / contact center operations are: Inadequate / Incorrect sample & also lack of information on how the sample was selected, leading to an inability in making meaningful assessment of performance Incorrect capture of survey data Identity problems: Scores attributed to agents who were not actually present and taking calls on the day the call was supposed to have occurred with the end customer Lack of correlation between the scores on internal quality assurance evaluation forms and the C-Sat survey Exclusion of negative scores due to Interactive Voice Response systems C-Sat designed more t o w a r d s v e n d o r management than actual measurement of customer experience / satisfaction

Customer Satisfaction Surveys

The quality of a customer satisfaction survey can be measured based on how they fare in three parameters: Validity - In terms of data integrity, and whether it is representative of the overall customer base Timeliness - In terms of conducting and providing the results of the survey Actionable - In its ability to provide clear insights to make both tactical and strategic decisions It is of prime importance that the survey brings out clearly the delight and disappointment factors that influence a customer's decision. The cost of not addressing the negatives would then equal the sum of losses due to: 1. Attrition in existing customer base 2. Loss of sales due to negative word of mouth

MphasiS Approach to

Customer Satisfaction Surveys

MphasiS is involved in servicing more than twenty five large companies across the America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Of the range of processes outsourced, customer service dominates. On any given day, more than 4500 of our agents service calls from across the globe and a sample of these calls are evaluated on mutually agreed parameters and analyzed for improvements. These surveys we realized are more designed to ensure adherence to Service Level Agreement (SLA) rather than customer satisfaction. This realization triggered the initiative to design methodologies for Customer Satisfaction (C-Sat) survey, involving a combination of: Six-sigma methodologies for survey design Technology driven data collection Best of breed analytic tools for analysis and reporting

Customer Satisfaction Survey

Historical relationships with survey vendors resulting in complacence in survey design Inadequacies in survey questionnaire design; be it in terms of type of questions; open ended /close ended or sequence of questions. Not Dynamic: Manual administration of survey prevents quick mid course correction

Survey Design
The various stages of the MphasiS C-Sat survey methodology is as follows: Information Need Analysis (INA) The information need analysis is done based on: Secondary data from existing customer contact centers / existing customer feedback. Primary survey data from end customers. This ensures that the survey is aligned to the client's expectations, i.e. the survey answers those questions which the client is seeking answers for. Sampling The sampling strategy uses proven statistical strategies to minimize bias and to ensure that the results are strategically valid, representative and useful for further analysis. The sampling strategy takes cognizance of: Nature of respondents: Sample ensures all the segments of the target population are represented. Sampling error: Acceptable sampling error is arrived at based on discussions with client and this drives sample size and associated costs. Questionnaire Design A balance of, open ended questions for assessing importance and close ended questions to measure performance & satisfaction, make up the questionnaire. Sequencing the questions to prevent bias is another check in the questionnaire design process. Data Collection & Collation Plan The objective of the data collection plan is to enumerate from the client, the data collection goals. Data collection details, types of calls, names of agent who took the call, call ID number to ensure traceability for future reference, date & time of call, respondent profile etc. Data consistency measures ensure that the data can be used for further

Customer Satisfaction Survey

Historical Flow for an IVR Sample Callrelationships with survey vendors resulting in based C-Sat complacence in survey design routed to the Call Call is Centre, from the overseas Inadequacies in survey customer site. questionnaire design; be it in terms of type of questions; Agents located in India open ended /close ended or answer customer calls as per sequence of questions. the ACD routing logic. The agents in India are physically Not Dynamic: Manual logged to the ACD queue in administration of survey the client PABX. prevents quick mid course correction Agents request customers on their willingness to participate in the survey On confirmation, the call is transferred to a VDN in the PABX which is mapped to a number of T1/E1 ports in the Survey Application Server The survey application gets triggered automatically, the moment the call hits the server. The Survey application (which is Speech Enabled) asks a set of questions to the customers on various parameters such as Call quality Agent knowledge Satisfaction level etc

analysis. The data is stored for comparisons over a period of time to determine change impact of changing market conditions and/or changes the client organization is making / made. Data collation is at a respondent level. Relevant data is also collected from multiple sources like Human Resource Management System, Quality Systems and Automatic Call Distributor amongst others.

Survey Mechanism & Logistics

Technology forms the base of administering the survey. A range of solution options are available for instant / post facto surveys. Surveys can also be set up as toll free numbers wherein the customers can call in and give the survey. In the case of instant surveys, the following options are available: SLA triggered surveys (say, all calls whose handle time crosses a certain threshold), at pre-defined frequencies (every tenth call), product / account based surveys amongst others. (Refer 'Sample call flow for an IVR based C-Sat') Surveys are administered using either text to speech converters, prerecorded prompts. Responses are collected based through voice recognition systems, touch tone systems.

Survey Analytics & Reporting

Once the data is collated, a thorough analysis of the same is done and reports generated. The various milestone of this phase are: Data Analysis Statistical tools like pareto, control impact matrix, correlation indices are used in data analysis. Key drivers of overall satisfaction are validated and determine control on them. Hypothesis Testing Hypothesis testing is done to identify attributes having a significant impact on customer satisfaction. Statistical tests are run on segments whose results are at a variance with the rest of the population.

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Customer Satisfaction Survey

And the customer feedback is taken verbally on the designated scale. Once the feedback session is over the customer hangs up. The feedback can be retrieved from the survey application later on and analysed.

Analytical Report Creation The report lists factors leading to customer satisfaction & dissatisfaction. Segments that have high / low customer satisfaction scores are identified. The aim of the report is to publish a customer satisfaction index which would reflect overall customer satisfaction. The analytics and findings are presented as in the form of dashboards.

Business benefits for clients

This approach to customer satisfaction surveys presents some obvious benefits: Increased & representative response rates over traditional surveys and therefore less sampling errors Cost and time savings through accurate, real time distribution, collection and reporting Survey aids in grouping agents based on C-Sat responses for focused coaching The actual benefit lies in the delivery of insights that all customer satisfaction survey vendors promise, but very few actually deliver! Identifying factors that build loyalty and usage of client services Critical strengths and weaknesses of the client's service

Customer Satisfaction Survey

About the Author Gaurav Bhatia has had 14 years of work experience of which close to 5 years have been in BPO with MphasiS and GE Capital and 7 in banking with HSBC. His present role at

About MphasiS
MphasiS - a global IT and BPO service provider to G2000 companies, assists its clients in innovating and streamlining their business processes by offering custom solutions for technology and operations outsourcing.

MphasiS is as a Program Director in Operations, prior to which he was the Head of Quality Assurance.

The company's expertise is focused on the financial services, logistics and technology verticals and spans across architecture, application development and integration, application management and business process outsourcing, including the operation of large-scale customer contact centers. MphasiS specializes in multi-channel solutions, which optimize sales and service processes from a cost and quality perspective.

Gaurav has a Bachelors degree in Economics from St Stephen's College, Delhi University and an MBA degree from Mc Gill University, Montreal. He has cleared the Six Sigma Black Belt exam while at GE Capital and was awarded HSBC's International Trainee of the Year in 1992 won ahead of 92 trainees from across the world.

Besides an onsite presence at key locations, the company has an extensive offshore infrastructure for IT Development and Business Process Outsourcing with centers in India, China and Mexico. MphasiS has a strong quality culture, reflected in ISO 9000 and BS 7799 certifications, an SEI Level 5 rating and Six Sigma quality initiatives. The company currently employs 9,400+ professionals.

For more information please contact:

USA : MphasiS, 460 Park Avenue South, Suite # 1101, New York, NY 10016, USA Tel.: 212 686 6655 Fax: 212 686 2422

UK : MphasiS, Southbank House, Black Prince Road, London SE1 7JS, UK Tel.: +44 20 7463 0601 Fax: +44 20 7735 1555 INDIA : MphasiS, The Millenia, Tower A & B, 1 & 2 Murphy Road, Ulsoor, Bangalore 560008, India Tel.: +91 80 2556 7500 Fax: +91 80 2556 7515
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