It takes careful planning and consideration to get accurate and useful customer feedback. You need to make sure you capture actionable feedback in a tracking database. You also need to commit staff to aggregate and analyze the feedback from multiple sources within the corporation. And finally, you must to allocate the time to take action on the analysis. Response Design can help you overcome these common hurdles and help you ensure your customer survey is viable.

Here are few tips:

1. First and foremost, write a survey plan before launching a customer survey!
2. Watch male/female bias in questions
3. Balance male/female response rates
4. Be sure to specify customer segment criteria. For example, in a retail environment: Participant spends more than $X per year
5. Watch response rates if multiple segments are being surveyed at once to ensure statistical validity
6. Put customers in zip code array and pick every nth name to ensure geographic coverage
7. Determine how many customers you will need to sample (2 times, 5 times, or 10 times the number of completed surveys) to get the desired number of returns.
8. Be sure to pilot all new surveys prior to full implementation. For example, in one survey a company asked, "Describe the customer service traits of a company that you admire." Many customers answered this question as if the "admired company" was the company sending the survey. Needless to say, these answers would definitely skew the data.