Customer Satisfaction Survey Design and Analysis Study

Introduction and NPL Questionnaire Overview

The questionnaire examined in this section is operated by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL). The online nature of the questionnaire means that all customers may access and complete it without requiring a specific invitation. This questionnaire was accessed by one of the group members after receiving an email invitation shortly after using NPL's services; the email served as a thank-you for using those services and directed the recipient to the survey.

The purpose of the questionnaire is to collect information from the company's clients specifically relating to the quality of service provided. This is evident in the style of the questions asked and is also outlined in the introductory information that precedes the questionnaire. The questionnaire aims to collect information from all clients who have used the company, although one section is directed specifically at customers who used a particular service — a distinction that is clearly detailed in the appropriate section of the survey. It would appear from information on the NPL website that this questionnaire is the only element of the company's sampling strategy for gaining information on service quality, which may also explain why the company is eager to obtain the opinions of all customers through this survey.

Because the questionnaire is accessible to all customers, it would indicate that NPL wishes to target its entire customer base as the survey population. This is further supported by the fact that all customers appear to be directed to the survey by email immediately after receiving their order. This approach is important as it should enable the company to receive an accurate representation of customer opinion by encouraging broader participation (Kaye & Johnson, 1999). Because the survey is automated, the large number of responses generated should not present the same logistical problems that high volumes of paper questionnaires might create. Automation also allows for automatic analysis of results rather than manual data entry and coding in a statistical package. It should also help eliminate bias associated with customer selection — for example, if only a select number of customers were randomly chosen to participate, repeat customers might have a higher probability of selection, and their satisfaction with the company could positively skew the results.

Critical Evaluation of the NPL Survey Design

Overall, the questionnaire is well designed. The online format is likely to encourage greater participation than a paper-based survey that requires postage (Kaplowitz, Hadlock & Levine, 2004). The language used throughout is clear and accessible, and respondents are always guided clearly on which sections apply to them. This matters because question style has been shown to influence participation rates in internet-based surveys (Dillman & Christian, 2005). The length of the questionnaire is also appropriate: enough questions are included to allow detailed analysis without inconveniencing respondents (Trouteaud, 2004).

Information collected at the beginning of the questionnaire establishes whether the respondent is a regular customer, helping to determine whether their responses reflect multiple experiences or a single occasion. The questionnaire also collects details about the specific services purchased, which may allow subsequent analysis to determine whether any reported problems are isolated to one area of the business. This is particularly useful when planning and implementing improvements. For example, a respondent who used NPL for training or consultancy is likely to have regular contact with the company, making customer service responsiveness especially important. By contrast, a respondent who used NPL for testing purposes may prioritise timeliness of project completion. Collecting this information enables segment-level analysis and more targeted business improvements.

The largest section of the questionnaire focuses on service quality and uses a predominantly five-point scale, where 5 represents excellent and 1 represents poor. The use of a numerical scale is valuable because it enables quantitative analysis and facilitates comparison of data collected across different periods, such as annual survey comparisons (Miller & Salkind, 2002). For each specific element of service, a "not applicable" option is also provided. Without this option, respondents might leave questions blank, creating ambiguity as to whether the omission reflects dissatisfaction or irrelevance, and possibly leading researchers to discard otherwise useful questionnaires.

Another strength of the survey is its structure: it first asks for a general overview of service quality, value for money, and range of services before probing specific elements. This broad-to-specific approach allows NPL to gauge overall opinion before identifying particular areas for improvement. The questionnaire also asks respondents to identify the elements they consider most important, enabling prioritisation of service improvements.

There are, however, some elements that could be improved. The survey requires respondents to provide identifying details, including company name, reference number, individual name, and job title. Providing such information may deter some respondents from completing the questionnaire (Joinson & Reips, 2007). This is particularly likely when respondents wish to give negative feedback, especially if they are regular customers who fear repercussions. Individuals may either decline to participate or provide artificially positive responses, introducing a positive bias into the results. While the respondent's job title may help researchers assess the authority of the answers given, knowing the individual's name or employer is not strictly necessary. Response quality could instead be judged from information about frequency of service use and the nature of the activities undertaken.

Additionally, some questions appear to serve purposes other than measuring service quality. For example, Question 6 asks respondents why they chose NPL, which may provide some indication of whether business arose from recommendation, but does not address this directly. This question may be more useful for understanding the company's major business channels than for evaluating service quality specifically.

Designing a Customer Satisfaction Survey for a Photographic Studio

The questionnaire described in this section was designed to collect service quality information from customers of a photographic studio operating as a franchise branch of a national brand. The customers surveyed would be those who had purchased one of several available packages for a photographic session. One of the group members had previously worked at this studio, providing a thorough understanding of internal processes and the customer experience that the studio aims to deliver.

The studio currently collects some information on the customer experience, but this focuses predominantly on the day of the shoot itself — for example, asking which parts of the photo shoot the customer enjoyed most. The existing questionnaire is simple, with only three options for multiple-choice questions and several open-ended questions. However, the studio was concerned that this approach did not capture sufficient information about customer satisfaction across the full customer journey, from initial contact through to receipt of the final photographic products. The new survey was therefore designed to focus solely on service quality across all stages of that journey, with the objective of identifying service problems that could be addressed by the studio manager. Improving customer service is particularly important to this studio because recommendation by friends has been identified as its most significant marketing channel, meaning that enhanced service quality could lead to substantially increased revenue.

The nature of the studio meant that customers could reach various stages of the process without necessarily completing the entire journey. For example, gift voucher recipients might contact the studio but never attend a session; large families might attend the photographic session without all members participating in product ordering; and some family members might arrive only for the product ordering stage. After discussion with the studio manager, it was decided that all customers' opinions would be valuable for measuring service quality, on the grounds that any contact with the company — however brief — could form the basis of a recommendation or its absence. All customers were therefore included in the sampling population.

Anonymity was a central design decision. The survey was kept anonymous to encourage broader participation (Joinson & Reips, 2007). Some customers planning to return to the studio might feel uncomfortable providing negative feedback if their identity were known. Anonymity was also considered analytically unnecessary, as it would have no bearing on the results.

The first question was designed to establish the extent of each respondent's contact with the studio. Respondents were asked to tick all applicable statements describing their involvement — purchasing a package, attending a session, placing an order, telephone contact, and so on. This allowed researchers to assess how much of the customer journey each respondent's opinion was based upon, and to identify which staff teams had been involved. For example, responses from customers whose only contact was purchasing a package could be isolated to evaluate the service quality of sales staff specifically, enabling more targeted improvements.

The main section of the survey was the second question, which used a five-point scale to rate different elements of service. This approach was chosen to allow statistical analysis and to facilitate comparison of results over time (Miller & Salkind, 2002). Elements assessed were identified as the most important aspects of the service commonly experienced by customers. A "not applicable" option was included to accommodate respondents with insufficient experience in particular areas.

The third section focused on the handling of complaints — an area the studio manager had flagged as problematic. Isolating this section allowed analysis of whether customers who had made complaints also reported more negative service quality experiences overall, and whether separate strategies might be needed for dissatisfied customers. For instance, if a large proportion of complainants also reported dissatisfaction with communication during their experience, increasing contact with complainants could help improve their overall perception of the studio and compensate for the original problem.

The fourth question asked respondents whether they would recommend the studio to friends and colleagues. Although not directly tied to a specific element of service quality, this question provided a useful overall indicator of satisfaction and was directly relevant to the studio's objective of understanding the relationship between customer satisfaction and sales. A final open section invited respondents to add any further comments, acknowledging that not all customers would use this space but that unexpected insights might nonetheless emerge.

References

Dillman, D.A. & Christian, L.M. (2005) Survey mode as a source of instability in responses across surveys. Field Methods, 17(1), 30–52.

Joinson, A.N. & Reips, U.-D. (2007) Personalised salutation, power of sender and response rates to Web-based surveys. Computers in Human Behavior, 23(3), 1372–1383.

Kaplowitz, M.D., Hadlock, T.D. & Levine, R. (2004) A comparison of web and mail survey response rates. Public Opinion Quarterly, 68(1), 94–101.

Kaye, B.K. & Johnson, T.J. (1999) Research methodology: Taming the cyber frontier — techniques for improving online surveys. Social Science Computer Review, 17(3), 323–337.

McQuarrie, E.F. (2005) The Market Research Toolbox: A Concise Guide for Beginners. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Miller, D.C. & Salkind, N.J. (2002) Handbook of Research Design and Social Measurement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

National Physical Laboratory (no date). Customer Satisfaction — Questionnaire. Available at: [Accessed 17 July 2008].

Shim, J.K. & Siegel, J.G. (2006) Handbook of Financial Analysis, Forecasting and Modeling. Chicago, IL: CCH.

Trouteaud, A.R. (2004) How you ask counts. Social Science Computer Review, 22(3), 385–392.

Appendices

Appendix 1: National Physical Laboratory Online Quality of Service Questionnaire

Your Details

1. Your name and your position

2. Business sector: Public or private

3. Business activity (multiple choice)

4. Product or service provided (multiple choice)

5. How many times a year does your department or company use NPL?

6. Why did you choose NPL? (multiple choice)

About Our Service

7. On a scale of 1–5, please indicate your views on the overall service provided (5 = excellent):
a. Quality of service   b. Value for money   c. Range of services offered

8. Please also indicate your views as above on specific aspects of service:
a. Speed of response to your initial enquiry
b. Ease of getting through to the right person
c. Understanding your needs
d. Attitude of NPL staff
e. Timeliness of quotation/proposal
f. Quality of documentation/presentations
g. Keeping you informed of progress
h. Ability to meet your technical needs
i. Completion of the service on time and to contract
j. Access to technical services
k. Opening hours/access
l. Timeliness of invoicing
m. Ease of payment

9. From the list above, please identify the three elements you consider most important.

10. To be answered by customers who sent in equipment for testing/calibration services only:
a. If the certificate or report was not received with the returned equipment, when was it sent? (multiple choice)
b. Please indicate how satisfied you are on a scale of 1–5 (5 = excellent) with the turnaround of your job: (i) from order placed to job start and (ii) from job start to completion.

Complaints
If anything has gone wrong — and we sincerely hope it has not — how satisfied were you with:
A. Ease of contacting NPL to complain
B. The attention given to your complaint
C. The speed with which NPL dealt with it
D. The final resolution/outcome

12. Please use this space if you would like to comment further or make suggestions for improvements.

Appendix 2: First Draft of Quality of Service Questionnaire for Photographic Studio

We are very grateful for your custom. In order to constantly improve the service we offer to our clients, we would be very grateful if you could complete the questions below. The answers you provide are completely confidential and you do not need to provide your name. Thank you for your time.

About You

1. Please place a tick next to each of the statements below which applies to you:
— I bought the studio package for myself to use
— Someone else bought the studio package for me to use
— I bought the studio package for someone else to use
— I attended a photo session at the studio
— I came into the studio to place an order for photos
— I spoke to members of the studio team over the telephone before attending the studio
— Since coming into the studio I have spoken to members of the studio team over the telephone
— I have had email contact with members of the studio staff

2. Overall, please rate the following elements of our customer service from 1 to 5, where 1 represents very poor and 5 represents excellent:
a. Speed of response to email or telephone messages — 1 / 2 / 3 / 4–5 / Not applicable
b. Ease of getting through to the right person — 1 / 2 / 3 / 4–5 / Not applicable
c. Understanding your needs — 1 / 2 / 3 / 4–5 / Not applicable
d. Attitude of studio staff — 1 / 2 / 3 / 4–5 / Not applicable
e. Ability to find an appropriate appointment slot — 1 / 2 / 3 / 4–5 / Not applicable
f. Timeliness of product delivery — 1 / 2 / 3 / 4–5 / Not applicable
g. Presentation of the results of your session — 1 / 2 / 3 / 4–5 / Not applicable
h. Keeping you informed of progress — 1 / 2 / 3 / 4–5 / Not applicable

3. If anything went wrong with any stage of your contact with our company, how satisfied were you on a scale of 1 to 5 with:
a. Ease of contacting us to complain
b. The attention given to your complaint
c. The speed with which your complaint was addressed
d. The final resolution or outcome of the complaint

4. Would you be likely to recommend our company to your friends and colleagues?
Yes / Possibly / No

5. Do you have any other suggestions which may improve the quality of the service you or others may receive from us in the future?

Appendix 3: Calculations for the Forecasts of the Customer Quality Satisfaction Index

The table below provides the coded month values (x), the calculated term 1.487x, the forecasted index value derived from the equation 1.487x + 62.163, and the corresponding forecasted value for each of the six months following the period covered by the time series analysis.