Strativity Group, the New Jersey and London-based consulting firm, conducted a study called "Discovering the Real Answers: Customer Surveys --The New Realities" to address how companies view the survey experience and what they do with the results.
Companies don't do much with customer survey results, according to the Strativity Group study. The consulting firm said in a release: "The results expose the fact that companies are hiding behind customer surveys as proof that they are listening to their customers, but in reality are not properly using the information once they have it."
The study seems to confirm what many cynics have been saying about customer surveys in this new era of customer love: that the trappings of customer care are more important to many businesses than a productive dialogue between seller and buyer.
The firm said: "Today's customer survey has become a validation for what companies are currently doing, and not what they can be doing better. This paradigm shift of how surveys are being used and the consequences of a lack of communication with your customers can lead to continued customer dissatisfaction and diminished sales."
The study, conducted through a web-based questionnaire, surveyed a variety of international executives across different verticals.
Strativity Group's findings include:
- 77% of the participants find it difficult to get buy-in for change within their organization.
- 71% of the participants state that there was very little survey follow up internally to change behavior in the organization
- 54.6% of the survey respondents indicated difficulty linking the survey results into action
- Slightly more than half (52.3%) of survey participants design surveys to validate current performance
"Today's companies are betraying their customers by asking them questions with little readiness to act upon their responses," said Strativity Group CEO Lior Arussy. "Our study reveals the drastic disconnect between customer expectations and the actions of companies. This failure to turn customer insights into actionable solutions will ultimately be detrimental on a company's bottom line."
