Would your customers recommend you?

Apr 1, 2004 12:00 PM, By M. Richard Vinocur

Early on I discovered that the secret to being a good journalist is asking the right questions — and understanding your subject is the key to knowing which questions to ask. The same can be said of research. You can't get the answers that will best direct your future actions without asking the right questions.

Last month I wrote about the film festivals that my wife and I attend. Because I sit in the front of the theater and join in the discussion of whatever movie we have just seen and ask the tough questions, I've become the “lay” critic of the festival. Other guests often approach me to ask what I thought of a particular film. I tell them there's only one question you need to ask: “Would you recommend it to a friend?”

When you think about it, the only question you need to ask when doing customer-satisfaction research is: “Would you recommend our company to a friend?” A positive response tells you all you need to know. A negative one requires a follow-up question: “Why?”

Surveys and questionnaires

During my travels, I always keep my eye out for surveys, questionnaires and other marketing techniques that are used to learn more about customers. You usually find them at restaurants and hotels. I'm a firm believer in a business researching its customers, so I almost always fill them out. (Airlines also have them on certain flights but only hand them out when there's a complaint. I honestly believe it's more of an attempt to mollify the passenger rather than to rectify the situation. I usually toss those away.)

On a recent trip to Palm Springs, CA, I visited Ruby's Diner, a West Coast restaurant chain with the look of a 1950s eatery. I was intrigued with the diner's cleanliness and the friendliness of its staff. The food was good, too. When the check came, our server included two forms and asked us to fill them out. “It will only take a minute,” she noted.

The first form asked about five categories: friendliness, cleanliness, service, food and beverage, and value. “Exceeded expectations” carried a face with a smile, “met expectations” showed a flat line where the mouth should be and “below expectations” carried a face with a frown. The survey also asked for the server's name, the location and the date. A second sheet asked for your name, e-mail address and birthday. When I returned from my trip, I received an e-mail thank-you for completing the survey. I bet I'll get another e-mail on my birthday. That's what I call learning more about your customers!

Several weeks later, I happened to rent a car from Hertz. A narrow, four-page pamphlet, “How Do You Rate Hertz?,” came with the contract. The inside spread asked 10 questions; the back page was addressed to The Hertz Corp. with postage paid so the self-contained survey could easily be mailed back. It took almost 15 minutes to fill out the form. Under “additional comments,” I noted that the questionnaire was too long. I also noted the counter person didn't bring the survey to my attention. I give the rental car company kudos for trying to learn more about their customers, but I'd bet Ruby's Diner receives a higher percentage of returns than Hertz does.

What are customers saying about you?

Shortly afterward, I ran across an article in the Harvard Business Review by Frederick F. Reichheld, director emeritus of Boston-based consulting firm Bain & Co. In “The One Number You Need to Know,” Reichheld wrote: “If growth is what you're after, you won't learn much from complex measurements of customer satisfaction or retention. You simply need to know what your customers tell their friends about you.” He went on, “By substituting a single question for the… typical customer satisfaction survey, companies can actually put… survey results to use and focus employees on the task of stimulating growth.”

Reichheld confirms my opening paragraph. He also suggested that a “yes” answer to recommending a product or a service to a friend leads to word-of-mouth advertising and can be a powerful marketing tool. How many times has a movie received bad reviews from critics, but did extremely well at the box office because one moviegoer recommended it to another? All of which proves that the more you know about your customers, the more you know about your business.

When was the last time you surveyed your customers? If you have a survey that delivered the kind of information you were looking for, please e-mail it to me at mrvinocur@aol.com.

M. Richard Vinocur is president of Footprint Communications. Contact him at mrvinocur@aol.com.