Few frozen yogurt shops run customer satisfaction surveys. Most frozen yogurt shop owners feel like they are too busy running the shop to bother with surveys and few have experience administering surveys.
While froyo shop owners may emphasize customer service to their employees, do they really know how customers feel about the shop? Yes, you can talk to customers in person, but you can’t talk to all of them and people may feel awkward about giving honest feedback to the owner or an employee. With the popularity of online reviews, customers have become less shy about sharing their honest opinion in a public forum.
However, reviews are unstructured and only a small fraction of customers write reviews. With surveys, shop owners can track their performance on key metrics, find areas for improvement, and gain additional insights from customers on a regular basis. And it doesn’t have to be effortful or expensive to use surveys.
Getting Started with the Survey Process
Before you write or select any survey questions, think about what you’d like to learn about your business from the survey. Write down what you’d like to learn and use what you’ve written to guide your question selection.
Questions should be phrased in objective, neutral language. The wording should be simple and direct. Avoid asking double-barreled questions, which touch upon more than one issue but force respondents to a restricted set of responses. The survey should be short, because long surveys lead to survey abandonment and survey fatigue. For additional tips on how to write survey questions, see: https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/customer-satisfaction-survey-questions/
Tracking Customer Satisfaction
The key thing to track is customer satisfaction. Many businesses are using the Net Promoter Score (NPS) to track customer loyalty and predict business growth. You can calculate your NPS by asking customers, “How likely is it that you would recommend [brand] to a friend or colleague?” using a 0-10 scale. Promoters are customers who chose 9 or 10 and detractors select 0-6. The NPS score is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors.
We’ve created a customer satisfaction survey template for frozen yogurt shops that you’re welcome to use as is or adapt to your needs. For example, you may want to add a question about whether the customer has joined your loyalty program, see how customers feel about your business hours, learn how customers first heard about your shop, etc. You may also wish to add an invitation to join your customer list for additional news and offers.
You can access our survey template here: https://goo.gl/forms/hMmJ2owKHbbEdbKA2
If you’re thinking of making a big change, consider running a one-time survey rather than an ongoing customer satisfaction survey.
Survey Programming
Once you’ve settled on your survey questions, you’ll need to think about how to best collect responses. First, you’ll need an online survey tool where you can create your survey and collect responses. There are paid and free survey tools. The free versions work well for small businesses with simple survey needs.
While you could have old fashioned pen and paper surveys, someone needs to manually input that data into a computer in order for you to track trends and look for patterns. Most people are familiar with and able to take online surveys.
There are quite a few free online survey tools available. They differ in terms of the features they offer. Survey Monkey is a well-known survey tool but the free version doesn’t allow you to export data, has a 10 question per survey limit, and also limits the number of responses to 100 per survey.
We prefer Google Forms. It offers unlimited surveys, survey questions, and responses. You can also export the data and customize the design.
Collecting Responses
Once you’ve programmed your survey into your survey tool, you can start collecting responses.
Keep in mind that the best time to ask customers to take the survey is shortly after the visit, when the visit is still fresh in their mind. Since most people get receipts, the best place to put the survey invitation is on the receipt. It is true that many people don’t look at their receipts, so train employees to mention the survey and the incentive. Also, put signs by the register about the survey.
Large chains like Pinkberry, Menchie’s, and Yogurtland use Survey Mini which sends surveys based on location data, so that customers receive surveys on the Survey Mini app shortly after their visit. It’s also easy for the customers to take the mobile survey. Respondents earn points and rewards for taking surveys.
Getting a good response rate won’t be easy, but offering a small incentive will help. Consider offering a discount on the next purchase (e.g., $1 off, 25% off) with the survey completion code or a monthly drawing for survey takers (e.g., win a $50 gift card, win free froyo for a week). The incentive can also help boost the repurchase rate.
Analyzing Results
If you’re constantly gathering survey responses, when should you analyze the data? The answer in part depends on how much time you have and how many responses you get. If monthly analysis seems too cumbersome, aim for a quarterly analysis of the results.
Don’t forget to calculate your Net Promoter Score and read the open-ended responses. Look for trends.
Using the Survey Results to Improve Your Business
Every time you analyze the results, share the results with your manager and employees. Discuss what changes should be made based on the findings. Keep in mind that the surveys are just one method of gathering customer feedback. Use them in conjunction with what you learn from other methods like talking to customers, reading customer reviews, reading comments on social media, mystery shopping programs, etc.
