Surveys are a research tool that collects information and data through targeted questions.

In customer service, surveys provide insight from customers on their feelings towards your product or service, their satisfaction with service experiences, and whether they believe there are things your business needs to improve upon. When you understand how they feel, it becomes easier to make changes and implement processes that best meet their needs.

As a service person, you may already be familiar with surveys like the Net Promoter Score (NPS®), customer satisfaction score, and customer effort score. Understanding how to use the results you obtain from them is critical. In this post, discover how HubSpot service teams use surveys to inform and boost customer support practices and draw inspiration to decide on the best course of action for your business.

How HubSpot Support Team Uses Surveys

Below we’ll hear from people on the HubSpot Support Team about how they use customer-facing surveys to inform their practices.

1. To make improvements that customers desire.

Amber Ebrahim, a manager on the Customer Support team, uses NPS® surveys to understand trending and individual customer feedback. She says, “When working on strategic initiatives, we’re considering the improvements that customers would like to see in our support workflow and the overall HubSpot experience.”

When you solve for the customer and take their experiences and feedback to heart, it becomes easier to solve their pain points and quickly provide solutions that meet their needs.

2. To understand how customers feel about improvements.

While customer surveys can certainly tell you whether customers feel you need to make improvements, how do you understand if they appreciate and value the improvements you’ve made?

David Hunt, VP of Global Customer Support, says that customers’ feedback informs a lot of the support team’s strategic direction and improvements to product and operations. Additionally, he says NPS®, CES, or CSAT surveys can help you understand how customers appreciate those improvements over time. He says, “Watching the trend directionally is important, and understanding how different aspects of your customer experience impact that number.”

Feedback surveys can give you direction and let you know if you make changes that customers appreciate.

3. To learn from high scores.

Consistent high scores on surveys may make it seem like you don’t have much work to do, but that’s not always the case.

There are always opportunities for improvement, and Ranju Srinivasan, Senior Customer Support Representative, gives this tip: “There’s a lot you can learn from both the lower and higher scores that come in. For example, when customers submit the highest score, they tell you what they enjoyed about the experience you provided them and, as a support rep, you can use that feedback and implement those same methods in your future interactions.”

Srinivasan gives an anecdotal example and says, “If a customer really loved that I made them a gif, I might do this with more tickets in the future. Promoters are just a great way to take your positive experiences and shape your approach as a rep.”

4. To understand the value support reps bring to customers.

While it may seem like the information gathered from customer-facing surveys only serve the customer, it can also be valuable for internal team growth.

Tony Baum, Manager on the Customer Support team, says that NPS® scores are an incredibly valuable resource for leadership: “As a manager, customer NPS® scores are a way to determine the amount of value each rep on my team is adding to our customers. I can leverage this data to determine my team’s strengths or opportunities and ways we can improve as a team.”

5. To seek additional coaching.

Brian Tassey is a Support Team Lead at HubSpot. When he was a frontline support rep, he used explicit feedback from customers to ask for further coaching opportunities from his mentors. He says, “Getting explicit feedback from customers regarding my performance allowed me to understand the impact of certain behaviors I might have exhibited. From there, I could ask for coaching in that area or take time to reflect on that feedback and how to grow from it.”

Tassey adds, “Feedback was also an excellent opportunity to find out when I was doing something RIGHT!”

6. To help support reps grow.

Ebrahim gives additional insight on survey usage that relates more to support reps and their development than customers. She says, “Surveys also provide invaluable insight to help our reps grow professionally and personally to work towards their long-term development goals!”

Catherine Monroe, a Customer Support Specialist, is a proponent of this tip as well: “Surveys help us to gather information from the team as a whole, which allows us to thrive and make valuable changes for growth.”

This use is quite popular, as Tassey gives it as well. He says, “I rely quite a bit on NPS® and associated comments to drill into growth opportunities for the reps that I am responsible for coaching.”

Support reps and teams that can improve upon their practices and grow from customer feedback are better suited to meet customers’ needs and provide them with the experiences they desire.

7. To celebrate achievements.

Tassey says that survey results, specifically from NPS®, are an excellent opportunity to praise teams for the great work they do to solve for the customer. He says, “Every Friday, I will round up the outstanding comments from my team for the week and post them in a room, giving props to their hard work and celebrating our wins!”

Surveys Serve A Variety of Purposes

As mentioned above, surveys are a critical tool for customer service. Learn from the ways that support teams at HubSpot use surveys and leverage their advice to create your own strategies.

If you’re interested in learning more about surveys in general, read The Ultimate Guide to Surveys.