What your customers experience

An audit tells you what happened on the day someone was watching. Your customers are there every day.

A compliance audit measures a site against your policy, on one visit, through an auditor's eyes. That is worth knowing. But it isn't what your customers experienced in the weeks either side, and a site can pass an audit while quietly losing its regulars.

A customer survey measures the site against what the customer expected, continuously, through theirs. The experience customers get isn't always the one your brand promises, and a good part of that comes down to who you hire.

What the customer does, and what you get

A short survey at the moments that matter, and a business-wide picture of the experience.

The questions are short and plain: how satisfied were you, did we meet your expectations, what could we have done better.

The survey is coordinated across your business, reaching customers through channels you already use — a receipt, a follow-up email, a message after an appointment. Using the same questions for the same type of interaction makes the responses consistent. That is what makes the answers comparable, and comparison is what turns a score into a signal.

The same questions at every site

Consistency is what a brand sells. This is how you measure it.

A single satisfaction score tells you very little. The same score tracked across forty sites tells you which three are moving the wrong way while there is still time to act.

A brand is a promise that the experience will be much the same wherever a customer finds it. The surveys show where that promise holds and where it doesn't — which sites, which moments, which stage of the customer's relationship with you. That turns "standards are slipping somewhere" into a specific site and a specific moment.

Acting on it builds customer loyalty, reduces the number of customers you lose, and improves profitability.

What happens once the answers are in

Results by site, set against the whole business, with what to work on.

Results come back by site, set against the business average and against each site's own history, so the question isn't just "how are we doing" but "where, and since when".

Where a site is falling short, the survey tells you that something is wrong and where it shows up. It doesn't always tell you why. That is what our culture survey is for, and the two work well together: one shows where the experience slips, the other shows what has changed inside the site.

Site managers can see their own site against an anonymous business average. A manager who can see how their site compares, on the same measures as everyone else, has something to act on.

The evidence behind it

Four decades of research linking satisfaction to loyalty and results, and surveys short enough to answer on the way out the door.

The link between customer satisfaction and business results is one of the most studied in marketing. A 2023 review of 245 studies, with a combined sample of more than a million, found satisfaction strongly linked to whether customers say they will come back and recommend you, and positively linked to sales, profit and return on assets. (Mittal and colleagues, Marketing Letters, 2023.)

The same review found the link holds just as well when satisfaction is measured with a single question as with several. That supports keeping surveys short; our shortest survey takes a minute or two. Asked the same way at every site, they give you a measure you can compare across the business and over time.

Psych Press has developed and published measurement instruments since 1995, in-house and in partnership with universities and international test publishers.

Who it suits, and who it doesn't

Businesses where the customer experience is what the brand sells.

Where the answer turns out to be who is serving the customer, our retail and hospitality screening and the Customer Service Predictor help you hire better.

Frequently asked questions

What your customers experience between audits

An audit tells you what happened on the day someone was watching. Your customers are there every day.

A compliance audit measures a location against your manual, on one visit, through your field team's eyes. That is worth knowing. But it isn't what your customers experienced in the weeks either side, and a location can pass an audit while quietly losing its regulars.

A customer survey measures the location against what the customer expected, continuously, through theirs. The experience customers get isn't always the one your brand promises, and a good part of that comes down to who your franchisees hire.

What the customer does, and what you get

A short survey at the moments that matter, and a network-wide picture of the experience.

The questions are short and plain: how satisfied were you, did we meet your expectations, what could we have done better.

Unlike our staff surveys, this runs at brand level rather than through each franchisee, reaching customers through channels you already use — a receipt, a follow-up email, a message after an appointment. Because the questions come from the brand rather than from each location, every customer is asked the same thing. That is what makes the answers comparable, and comparison is what turns a score into a signal.

The same questions at every location

Consistency is what a franchise sells. This is how you measure it.

A single satisfaction score tells you very little. The same score tracked across forty locations tells you which three are moving the wrong way while there is still time to act.

A franchise brand is a promise that the experience will be much the same wherever a customer finds it. The surveys show where that promise holds and where it doesn't — which locations, which moments, which stage of the customer's relationship with you. That turns "standards are slipping somewhere" into a specific location and a specific moment.

Acting on it builds customer loyalty, reduces the number of customers you lose, and improves profitability.

What happens once the answers are in

Results by location, set against the network, with what to work on.

Results come back by location, set against the network average and against each location's own history, so the question isn't just "how are we doing" but "where, and since when".

Where a location is falling short, the survey tells you that something is wrong and where it shows up. It doesn't always tell you why. That is what our culture survey is for, and the two work well together: one shows where the experience slips, the other shows what has changed inside the location.

Franchisees can see their own location against an anonymous network average. A franchisee who can see how their location compares, on the same measures as everyone else, has something to act on.

The evidence behind it

Four decades of research linking satisfaction to loyalty and results, and surveys short enough to answer on the way out the door.

The link between customer satisfaction and business results is one of the most studied in marketing. A 2023 review of 245 studies, with a combined sample of more than a million, found satisfaction strongly linked to whether customers say they will come back and recommend you, and positively linked to sales, profit and return on assets. (Mittal and colleagues, Marketing Letters, 2023.)

The same review found the link holds just as well when satisfaction is measured with a single question as with several. Short surveys lose nothing, which is why ours are built to take a minute or two. Asked the same way at every location, they give you a measure you can compare across the network and over time.

Psych Press has developed and published measurement instruments since 1995, in-house and in partnership with universities and international test publishers.

Who it suits, and who it doesn't

Networks where the customer experience is what the brand sells.

Where the answer turns out to be who is serving the customer, our retail and hospitality screening and the Customer Service Predictor help franchisees hire better.

Frequently asked questions