VINCORION

How good is customer service? Lack of detailed knowledge about the customer’s point of view

Specific projects for continuous process and product optimization are an essential part of the corporate strategy of the entire Jenoptik group. However, these are aimed at the overall performance of the parent company. VINCORION’s customer service department, however, wanted specific statements on its own performance. Apart from isolated pieces of feedback, which were communicated from time to time in customer contact, the department did not have any solid information on the quality of the services provided. This was why the subsidiary’s customer service department decided to conduct a wide-ranging survey of its clients. The intention was to determine a general mood across the entire customer base and uncover hidden potential in day-to-day business.

Convenient outsourcing of a broad B2B survey

The mechatronics company first turned to Spectos at the end of 2017 to set up a customized B2B survey to assess customer satisfaction with after-sales and repair services. The survey design was carried out in close cooperation, with Spectos project management providing its expertise and experience as a valuable advisor. The focus of the survey was divided into the categories “Customer Support”, “Repairs” and “Spare Parts Delivery”, as the processes in these areas differ greatly from each other. In order to adequately address the international group of participants, the survey was designed in German and English.

VINCORION completely outsourced the survey to Spectos. For this purpose, Spectos sent the short link to the survey via email to a selected group of customers. Since some of the respondents could not access the web link due to very high-security standards, PDF surveys were provided as an alternative for answering. Spectos sent out a reminder email after each survey period of two and four weeks as a friendly reminder.

The evaluation of the survey results was also carried out by Spectos. This ensured the anonymity of the survey. The detailed evaluations provided, among other things, information on the structure of the group of participants, such as breakdowns by industry, country of origin and opening rate of the survey. The report also included a matrix with recommendations for action in the categories of repair, spare parts delivery and customer service. This enabled VINCORION to prioritize future quality measures based on urgency.

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The results of the survey were presented to employees and management. Two years later, in 2020, a follow-up survey was conducted using the same set of questions. This served to test the effectiveness of the derived measures among customers. 

Noticeable effects of the satisfaction survey among customers

By completely outsourcing the survey to Spectos, VINCORION’s customer service department was able to conduct a broad-based satisfaction survey of its business customers without any additional effort in day-to-day business. The response of the addressed participants was extremely positive. This was also reflected in the quality of the responses. Most of the feedback received was comprehensive and constructive, providing specific pointers for quality-enhancing measures. 

The insights gained helped customer service to, among other things, implement tangible improvements in customer contact. For example, obstacles to customer service accessibility were identified and easily resolved by providing several email inboxes.

The Customer Service team derived concrete measures for process optimization from the results of the first feedback report. Feedback from the follow-up survey in 2020 proved that the improvement measures taken were noticeable on the customer side and that customers perceived the changes positively. Based on the effects achieved, VINCORION’s Customer Service has decided to firmly incorporate the Spectos Survey Service into its optimization strategy. Satisfaction surveys are now scheduled to take place every 2 years.

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