Hi Cody, when I led CX company-wide for a global manufacturer, we focused primarily on our Annual Customer Relationship Survey. Secondarily, we had 2 transaction surveys, after installations and for spare parts transactions. Many of our large customers (e.g. IBM, TI, Motorola) sent us a monthly or quarterly report card, and there was an independent quarterly study report we received, along with occasional independent customer consortium studies as well. Our other surveys were for specific ad hoc purposes (R&D, marketing, etc.). This way managers had plenty of information about customer sentiment, without overwhelming them.
Our goal with the CX annual and transactional surveys was to keep a pulse on everyone involved in purchase decision-making. That included end-users within our customers' companies, plant/general managers, purchasing, supplier management, safety, quality, facilities, etc. So each person involved was in our survey population. The set of questions each functional area received was tailored to their span of influence and interest.
To produce a realistic view of our market, our annual survey used stratified random sampling. This way, we could proactively ensure ample responses from each functional role and type of customer. Otherwise, it will be much harder to present statistically significant data for each role that you want to call out in reports, because you end up with whatever you get, which will over-represent and under-represent randomly. For markets where the population was small and we had to survey everyone and take what we got, we applied a multiplier on the responses to properly reflect purchase decision influence and that market's population.
So, the keys are (a) suitable questions, (b) database of all players in decisions, (c) stratified random sampling, (d) weighting as needed, and (e) resisting over-surveying, so management can focus primarily on major efforts to prevent root causes of prevalent issues. This approach also freed up managers from the otherwise constant treadmill of inner closed loop, to give super attention to outer closed loop as the source of massive CX ROI.
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Lynn Hunsaker, CCXP, RTP
Chief Customer Officer
ClearAction Continuum
Phoenix AZ United States
(408) 687-9700
lynn.hunsaker@clearaction.comLinkedIn.com/in/lynnhunsaker
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-27-2023 10:25 AM
From: Cody Yancey
Subject: Managing Surveys for Multiple Stakeholders
Hello everyone!
I'm extremely happy to be a part of a community of like-minded individuals where ideas can be exchanged and discussed.
On that note, I'm incredibly curious to get any thoughts on managing survey strategy with multiple stakeholders across an enterprise. In the B2B space not only do we have multiple touchpoints, but large multinationals often have multiple business units that interact with the same individuals. In such circumstances I have found managing the needs and wants of the multiple internal leadership teams with the desire to not over-survey and annoy our customers to be a difficult challenge. While an entirely generic, omnibus survey may not meet the needs and wants of the various internal parties...there is only so much customization that can happen before you're effectively sending entirely different surveys for each business unit.
I'm curious to hear any thoughts or experiences others may have around this aspect of B2B CX, and perhaps the path you and your organization took to overcome it.
Cody
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Cody Yancey
Customer Experience Lead
TE Connectivity
Columbia SC
(405) 255-1715
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