Why Equipment Dealers Should Conduct Customer Satisfaction Phone Surveys

The best way to improve your heavy equipment dealership is to understand what you are currently doing great, what you are doing okay, and what areas currently need a change. Customer satisfaction phone surveys help you see what your customers think about your services and products, and how well you provide them. They give you insights on how customers perceive your business and what areas or departments could do better.

How phone surveys improve heavy equipment service

• Increase customer retention by 30% – 40%
• Identify problems fast
• Show your customers that you care

If you’re thinking about whether your dealership should conduct customer satisfaction phone surveys, all you need to do is look at the numbers. Customer retention rates are about 30% to 40% higher for dealers that do regular surveys compared to those who don’t. The reason is that those dealers can improve every part of their business, from heavy equipment service to sales to rentals to parts, because they find out what is wrong and can react quickly.

Phone surveys allow your company to identify problem areas and issues before your customers take their business elsewhere. If people have a consistent issue with your services or process, most will just leave without saying anything. However, if a third party calls and asks them if anything is wrong, they provide honest feedback.

Why do surveys over the phone?

The best type of customer satisfaction surveys are phone surveys, because they typically provide a better sample. At Winsby, our team will usually reach a customer over the phone on every third call. And then once we are talking to them, about 97% agree to take the phone survey. This rate is much better than responses for email surveys, for which a good response is 2% of recipients. The other benefit of phone surveys is that they are interactive; your customers can fully explain any issues and the caller can ask follow up questions. For email surveys, we really aren’t sure whether they even read the questions!

Another best practice is to use a third party to handle the surveys rather than someone from your dealership. The reason is that most customers are more honest with an outside person and will be more comfortable explaining problems to them instead of an in house employee or someone they have worked with before.

How phone surveys work

The first step your equipment dealership needs to take is to develop a calling script. Ask relevant questions covering when your customers care about and what is most important in your business. Key areas for dealers are typically heavy equipment service capabilities and availability, parts turnaround time, rental equipment availability, and new machine inventory.

After creating your script, you need to call a target number of customers each month. Record all the responses and follow up on any negative responses immediately. The final step is to inform relevant departments of any issues, so they can start fixing them.

What’s the benefit for your dealership?

Customer satisfaction phone surveys make it possible to improve every aspect of your business, from heavy equipment service to parts to rentals to sales. They help you understand what your customers think about you and your processes. The information you gain will allow you to fix problems fast and prevent any negative word of mouth or posting online reviews.

If you can solve the issues fast, then any unhappy customers become some of your most loyal ones moving forward simply because you showed that you care about them.