Are you satisfied?

At Malvern we take customer support very seriously and are always looking to improve the level and range of service that we provide. As Product Manager for After Sales it’s part of my job to find out whether we’re getting it right. We offer services that we believe meet our customers’ needs, but how can we be certain?

Monthly surveys

To try and answer that question, around two years ago we began to conduct monthly satisfaction surveys. Any customer who has received an on-site visit from one of our engineers in the previous month, or who has had some interaction with our help desk , will receive a questionnaire. As we don’t want to bother you unnecessarily, we make sure that nobody is sent one of these surveys more than once a quarter, and of course everyone has the choice of opting out altogether.

The main question asks “how satisfied are you with the overall response you have received from Malvern Instruments?” I won’t claim that we don’t have any negative responses but in the first three months of 2011 more than half of our respondents said they were “totally satisfied” with a further 30% “somewhat satisfied”. Anyone expressing dissatisfaction is contacted individually so that their specific concerns can be addressed.

Essential feedback

Our surveys give respondents the chance to comment in their own words and this feedback is of great value to us. Many of the comments relate to specific situations but we also get much more general comments that are equally useful.

For instance, we know how pleased our customers are to have fast and reliable access to our helpdesk – so we are looking to invest in new telephone software to enable us to provide even better global support.

I know when I receive survey invitations I tend to think “Oh what’s the point?” but we genuinely are interested in the feedback and we do act upon it.

So many thanks to all of you who have helped us by responding and please do continue to tell us what you think.