What Is an After-Call Survey?

In this article, Jennifer Passini at NICE and Steven Owens at Odigo define after-call surveys and explain how they work.

What Is an After-Call Survey?

According to Jennifer Passini at NICE, an after-call survey is a feedback request made following a customer call, with the goal of uncovering success or flaws in the call touchpoint experience.

After-call surveys are important as a diagnostic tool to fine-tune the experience and service delivered. They not only assess perceptions of experiences, but also help an organization understand customer motivations and intentions following the experience.

Steven Owens at Odigo expands on this by explaining that:

Steven Owens

An after-call survey is typically an automated way of collecting customer feedback primarily about either the perception of a brand using Net Promoter Score (NPS) questions or about performance by asking questions that help calculate Customer Satisfaction (CSAT).

The key to using the data from after-call surveys effectively is to have the right goals in mind by considering what these surveys do and do not represent.

After-Call Surveys Are:

A Clue That Something May Need Addressing

However, without further analysis or investigation, the wrong measure could be rushed into place. As such, they should be treated as a piece of the puzzle.

A Specific Snapshot

By definition, an after-call survey does not include the full breadth of a business’s omnichannel services; these would be assessed in a different manner. Therefore, an after-call survey is not representative of an organization’s overall NPS or CSAT.

A Chance for Individual Feedback, and a Way to Vent Frustration

This presents an opportunity to fix situations, help retain loyal customers and funnel negative feedback away from social media or public forums.

After-Call Surveys Are Not:

Market Research

The response rate is likely to be too low and negatively skewed by the customers who were motivated enough to actually respond, usually for negative reasons. Therefore, a small amount of positive feedback is a significant pat on the back for frontline agents.

Useful Unless Properly Interpreted

If after-call surveys become just an automatic part of contact centre procedures, and especially if they are approached with a readiness to dismiss the majority of the feedback because it is negatively skewed, the whole exercise becomes redundant. An opportunity for first-hand, though specific, Voice of Customer insights could then be wasted.

A Good Target

Goodhart’s Law states “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”. Overinterpreting or trying to influence the results of these surveys can create an unsuccessful mixture of strategies that fail to have the desired effect.

This is because the outcome is dependent on a potentially complex set of conditions that can only be assumed to influence those who actually respond.

Accurate for Generalizing or Wide Comparisons

There is often a lot of context or subtlety; for example, an after-call survey post-purchase will yield different results from one for a public sector call centre.

How Do After-Call Surveys Work?

Jennifer Passini

Jennifer Passini at NICE explains that with survey results, organizations can assess key drivers or influencers of overall satisfaction and can isolate opportunities to improve internal procedures, systems, and policies impacting customers’ experiences.

Diligently using these surveys as part of a wider Customer Experience Programme that gathers omnichannel feedback including unsolicited and operational data helps dramatically improve customer loyalty as it demonstrates to customers that their concerns and compliments are being heard and acted upon.

For contact centre supervisors, after-call surveys are helpful in improving overall performance for that touchpoint, as they highlight the metrics most important to customer satisfaction and areas for improvement to guide coaching and training for agents.

However, it is critical to compare this customer feedback with agent and team performance quality management measures to deliver truly personalized training.

After-call surveys powered by interactive voice response technology that’s native to the CX technology already in use eliminates the costs and complexity commonly needed to add third-party software.

For more information on customer surveys, read these articles next:

Author: Robyn Coppell

Published On: 24th Jun 2022 - Last modified: 24th Aug 2023
Read more about - Customer Service Strategy, Customer Surveys, Feedback, NICE, Odigo, Voice of the Customer