This post is for consumers who take surveys (all of us!) and the companies that write them. As consumers, our days are busy as it is without companies hounding us endlessly with one survey after another. Do their stock questions and answers really get at your issues? Wouldn't it just be better for you to express to companies, in your own terms, in your own words? Companies, let them VENT!
Consumers: You know those ubiquitous surveys that companies send to you after you buy their product, or after they complete a particular service (say, a furniture delivery or plumbing repair)? I'm sure you've had opinions on how the transaction went, how it could have been better, or want to give a shout out to the particular rep that helped you.
You're probably like me, thinking that the provided "yes/no" or "rate 1-5" questions don't get at what really happened, and that it's just easier and more direct to leave comments. But more crucially, I bet you've wondered whether your opinions were ever read at all, or if it really made a difference.
Companies: How much time and effort are you spending to figure out the survey questions that might reveal needed refinements to your operations? The survey has to be comprehensive enough to capture a thorough understanding, but concise enough that consumers won't abandon it in frustration.
As such, a lot of hand-wringing probably goes on to suss out the questions that truly get at the core of what you need to know. Are you really succeeding in gathering actionable insights and metrics? You asked great questions, are you listening and acting on the answers?
Your customers don't want to be boxed in on the limited possible answers you give them. It's an impossible job to try to conceive of their diverse concerns, let alone capture their true sentiment in these close-ended questions. Given the litany of public and vendor specific feedback forums, today's consumers are very much used to expressing themselves in their specific manner and voice.
You need to understand their genuine sentiments, then be nimble and responsive to their concerns. Or, you can watch as your competitor pivots to produce a better market fit, while your survey results are still sitting on the servers in your marketing department waiting to be analyzed and distributed.
So what's the solution?
We know we need to do a better job in getting in the hearts and minds of our customers. But if you succeed in capturing these genuine and insightful verbatims en masse, you're now in information overload! Just as you may not have the resources to figure out the right questions, I'm sure you don't have an abundance of staff to ingest and extract the insight!
Enter machine learning and the current state-of-the-art in "unstructured" text analytics. At Bintel, we have capabilities that can make sense of these responses and get at the essence of what your customers are trying to tell you. We can quantify and classify their sentiments in categories that make sense to you, and help you to discover action items that your customers have been telling you for months or years!
We can extract these insights from your historical survey data, start tracking sentiments going forward, link certain actions to results and drive informed change decisions. You'll also learn how to modify and refine your "close-ended" questions, which will augment your overall survey efforts. All this while spending less time and resources on the process.
