When you decide to conduct a customer satisfaction survey, one of the first decisions you will need to make is to conduct a relationship-oriented or a transaction oriented survey. A "relationship" survey asks the customer about all or most aspects of the service relationship. A "transaction" survey focuses on satisfaction with a specific transaction. In making the decision of which way to go, you should ask yourself the following questions.
There are instances when you will want to consider taking both approaches. This can be done in the context of a single survey by asking about both the latest transaction and the relationship, or by conducting separate surveys. If separate surveys are conducted and your customers conduct frequent transactions, it is a good idea to ensure that any one customer is not surveyed too frequently. After all, the last thing we want to do in administering a customer satisfaction survey is to aggravate customers.