Post Call Surveys

December 10, 2017 Last Updated: December 16, 2023
Justin

Post-Call Surveys are typically an automated survey (using technology) that is used at the end of a call to gather information from the customer about the interaction they just completed.

What are Post-Call Surveys used for?

Post-Call Surveys can be used for a variety of reasons including:

  • Voice of the Customer e.g.
    • Confirming whether their issue was resolved (first call resolution)
    • How satisfied with the organisation they are as a whole (perhaps through using the NPS metric)
  • The performance of the agent

What type of technology do you need to conduct a post-call survey?

The simplest option is to use an IVR (press one for this, two for that) that will enable customers to enter their score typically on a scale of 1 to 9.

Or, you can use specialist Post-Call Survey software that can use a combination of touch-tone (customers using the keypad) as well as recording actual responses.

The verbatim responses can be listened to at a later stage or you can use speech analytics software to ‘mine’ millions of calls to identify key items of feedback ie. how many times a customer said “I want to cancel”.

It’s also not uncommon to use a post-call survey to capture an NPS score or other VOC metrics.

For the post-call software solutions, sometimes it’s just an additional module you can add to your existing call centre technology platform or your agents simply transfer the caller to the automated system.

 

 

Do you even need technology?

Technology vendors love selling technology and there is no doubt that automating your post-call surveys is beneficial.

But for many small centres it may just fall into the ‘too-hard’ basket or there is simply no budget to implement anything.

But that doesn’t mean you still can’t survey the customer at the end of the call!

Provide your agents with some printed forms to capture the answers, create a spreadsheet and so on – there are lots of manual methods you can use to still conduct a post-call survey with customers and gather important intel on how you can improve your call centre and the broader business.

Post-call Survey Tips

The good news is if you head down the technology path, post-call survey technology is relatively easy to implement.

But like any quality or Voice of the Customer program, the work is in the design to make sure there is value in implementing it and the ongoing management.

  • Keep it short – a maximum of 3 questions (just one is even better).
  • Tell the customers upfront how many questions there are.
  • Keep the scale consistent. For example, if you ask three questions ensure the responses are always on the same scale ( if 1 is not good and 5 is excellent…).
  • For feedback where you want a verbal response from the customer, ask open-ended questions.
  • Ensure the results are linked back to an individual agent if you are going to use it as part of your agent evaluations.
  • If you aren’t going to bother using the information you have gathered, don’t waste your customers time.

When to use Post-call surveys

I’ve had mixed results using post-call surveys and there are certainly a few ways to approach it:

  • Add it to the end of every call automatically
  • Empower the agents to offer it to customers at the end of every call
  • Only run it on certain days of the weeks/hours
  • Only set it to fire on certain call types (e.g. sales calls or complaints)

As with any new process in a contact centre, trial it with a small sample size and only when you feel things are in order should you consider rolling it out across the entire call centre.

Post-Call Survey Reporting

The whole idea of implementing post-call survey reporting is to gather information that can be used to improve the performance of the individual call taker or the organisation as a whole.

Many of the post-call survey software programs incorporate powerful dashboards enabling you to extract a range of different reports.

More modern systems are now using the power of speech analytics to analyse millions of calls to identify trends, patterns etc – something you would never be able to achieve manually reviewing the calls.

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