Customer satisfaction and employee attitude surveys Research for Customer and Employee Satisfaction Measurement
Home > Products > Customer | Employee Satisfaction Measurement

Benefits of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Programs
opinion surveys, satisfaction measurement, and attitude tracking studies

Forward Analytics is a customer loyalty research provider using customer satisfaction questionnaires to assist clients with the tracking and measurement of customer or employee attitudes and opinions.
To understand how relationships are formed, we need an insight into the factors that contribute to customer satisfaction. Many companies demonstrate a very narrow view of these factors assuming that if they get their core product right and deliver it quickly and conveniently, the customer will be satisfied. As leading customer satisfaction and customer loyalty research suppliers, we recognize that the drivers behind customer attitudes and opinions are much more complex than that.
The findings of a customer satisfaction questionnaire are used to develop customer retention plans, strengthen areas of perceived weaknesses, reinforce company strengths, and help develop new marketing strategies. In general, any business development plan should be tied to a customer satisfaction measurement report that honestly reflects an organization's ability in such areas as service quality, customer relations, billing and delivery, etc. Companies who fail to track attitudes and opinions with marketing research are at risk within a vacuum of their own internal culture and beliefs.
Even companies who do use some form of customer or employee attitude survey study often fail to fully implement the findings in a way that can provide a bottom line impact to organization. Let's say, a customer satisfaction questionnaire provides a rating of 7.5 on a 10 point scale . . . so what? By itself, it doesn't tell a marketing manager anything meaningful. It doesn't answer questions regarding how to improve or where to improve. Furthermore, customer satisfaction research cannot even indicate whether your performance is improving or not over time. If you've kept the survey and methodology the same, you still don't know whether satisfaction improved because customers tend to change their expectations.

Using Business Intelligence to Avoid Pitfalls

Forward Analytics customer satisfactions consultants can help your organization avoid these pitfalls and generate solid business intelligence. Our process involves a structured three-phase approach. First we design proper customer or employee attitude surveys. Next we prioritize all the findings. Finally, we perform maintenance and track how these opinions improve over time.
First, Forward Analytics' customer satisfaction tracking studies allow the customer to tell you what's important and how satisfied they are with your performance. Once importance ratings and satisfaction levels are determined, we prioritize the areas where the most improvement is needed. This is done through quadrant analysis.
Quadrant analysis is simply a graphical depiction showing all areas of the company plotted according to their importance and performance. The field of rating points is then divided into four quadrants: low relative importance/low relative performance, low relative importance/high relative performance, high relative importance/high relative performance, high relative importance/low relative performance. The last quadrant (high relative importance/low relative performance) is the "opportunity quadrant." Here you stand to gain the most from improvements.
As your customer satisfaction consultant, Forward Analytics offers direction by revealing where improvement is most warranted and will offer the greatest return. In other words, customer satisfaction measurements should help prioritize a company's improvement program. Forward Analytics can structure your customer satisfaction questionnaires to provide feedback not only on your company as a whole, but to break that down by how you are doing in different regions, with specific accounts, by account managers or other staff who oversee and interact with your accounts, or by virtually any other important factor that you can define within your business model.
Customer relationships are the result of long periods of customer satisfaction. Our customer satisfaction research benchmarks your customer's opinions and attitudes and is structure with metrics for tracking progress. Some companies may need customer satisfaction measurement done biannually, annually, alternating years, or perhaps when there is an abrupt change in the market or industry. Our tracking studies are designed to fit your business needs.

Measuring Employee Satisfaction

Monitoring employee satisfaction levels is essential for the acquisition and retention of a quality workforce. Tracking the attitudes and opinions of employees can identify problems areas and solutions related to management and leadership, corporate policy, recruitment, benefits, diversity, training, and professional development. A comprehensive employee satisfaction study can be the key to a more a motivated and loyal workforce.
The first step is to understand exactly which issues have the greatest impact on employee satisfaction. Forward Analytics will work closely with you to design an employee opinion survey. During a storyboarding session, our researchers gather potential users of the research (human resources, management) to brainstorm the specific lines of questioning to be deployed in the employee satisfaction survey. We have found in our broad base of clients that this process leads to a detailed survey instrument which benefits from our clients' knowledge of their issues and needs, and Forward Analytics' considerable expertise in questionnaire design and research methodology.
The findings of the employee satisfaction survey will tell you exactly how much more important one issue is over another so that you can focus your performance improvement initiatives appropriately. In analyzing the data, we can define and refine issues that need addressed, such as overall job satisfaction, professional fulfillment, employee motivation and commitment, likelihood to stay with the organization, pay level, corporate goals and objectives. Survey results can be segmented by employee position, length of employment, full-time vs. part-time, etc.

Employee Attitude and Climate Surveys

Employee attitude and climate surveys are a great tool for enhancing the workplace communication process. When manager are more fully in tune with what employees are thinking and feeling they are better able to address issues before they become problems requiring a much greater amount of time and effort.
Employee attitude and climate surveys are valuable tools when there is a change in the status quo. These changes include a reorganization of the company, an introduction of a new product or service, company relocation, a change in policies, or a period of rapid growth. In these situations, organizations must learn to work and communicate with employees to insure that the results of these changes will be positive. Employee attitude and climate surveys give employees a voice to assist in making these transitions as smooth as possible.
Additionally, Forward Analytics works with organizations to create custom employee attitude and climate surveys that provide data in the following areas: motivation, morale, communication, disciplinary action, team building, perceived fairness or management, problem solving, opportunity for advancement, etc.
Why shouldn't an organization conduct their own employee attitude and climate surveys? External employee attitude and climate surveys have several benefits over internal surveys. First, employees will be more candid and open when approached by someone without direct ties to the organization itself. The uneasiness of expressing thoughts regarding superiors and coworkers is eliminated by dealing with an experienced third party. Additionally, employees tend to provide more honest responses and opinions.
Second, personal interests will not create bias within the employee satisfaction survey and analysis. An inter-organization study may focus on the problems that management perceives. The survey may start with the outcome already assumed and, therefore, be biased toward this outcome.
And lastly, Forward Analytics provides professionals who specialize in employee attitude and climate survey design and analysis. They are able to design a thorough and unbiased survey and produce analytical results quickly and professionally.

Customer | Employee Satisfaction Tools

Forward Analytics has multiple research methodologies that can be utilized to measure satisfaction levels, determine the relative importance of the different reasons for those satisfaction levels among customers, members and employees, and identify areas that need improvement.
  • Structured online or mail surveys are completed by the respondent at their own pace. Although the results are primarily quantitative, open-ended questions can be used to elicit suggestions. The online format is hosted at a secure web site, which is accessed through a password-protected entry screen. While the electronic data collection process is faster than the mailed format it is not recommended if the respondent sample will not be accurately represented by those that use the Internet. Mail surveys can sometimes provide a more accurate sample. Anonymity can be assured as surveys are returned in a business reply envelope to our third-party firm.
  • Telephone interviews can be conducted using a CATI process (Computer Aided Telephone Interviewing) whereby the interviewer directly enters responses into a computer terminal during the interview. Upon completion of the survey process our statistics department will proof and validate the survey dataset.
  • Executive Telephone Interviews - These in-depth phone surveys usually last anywhere from 5 to 45 minutes. Our interviewers are trained to conduct in-depth surveys with high-level executives with your firm's most important customers. These surveys are partially structured to provide solid, quantified data and have many open-end questions, which are designed to elicit your customers' true feelings about your services and products.
If you would like further information about how we could help your organization better position itself and reduce turnover through customer or employee satisfaction measurement, please give us a call. We will gladly provide you with a proposal and sample customer satisfaction questionnaires or employee attitude surveys. We can be reached at 412-207-2114.


Industrial Branding Research Firm
Forward Analytics' research methodologies can help you correct weaknesses among customers, members,
and employees.

Some of our tools include:

Secure Online Surveys

Mail Surveys

Intercept Surveys

CATI Phone Interviews

Executive Interviews

Focus Groups