Customer Satisfaction Survey Results
Authors: Aslam Ibrahim & Clifford Chouinor
Customer Satisfaction
We monitor information on customer satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction as one of the measurements of performance of the Laboratory Management System. The Management System Officer conducts an electronic survey using F407.001 (e-Doc 6075165) to capture satisfaction information of the CNSC staff members utilizing the services of the Laboratory and also to receive any suggestions for improvement of the services. The survey results are used as input into the management review process. Any immediate problems are to be documented and corrected through the non-conformance and corrective action processes. Any improvements are implemented through the document change process and followed up and monitored through internal assessment process.
Annual Customer Satisfaction Survey for Gamma Calibration Services ̶ 2018
INTRODUCTION
Customer Feedback
The CNSC Laboratory solicits customer feedback on an annual basis as one of the measurements of performance of the Laboratory Management System (LMS) (e-Docs-#4412335) in regards to instrument management and calibration services. Customers can provide feedback to the Laboratory to address any issues which require immediate attention any time as needed, however, the annual survey provides an opportunity for customers to feedback on any aspect of the laboratory’s services including data quality and turnaround times. Any immediate problems as reported by the customers are to be documented and corrected through the non-conformance and corrective action processes following the Laboratory procedure P409 Corrective Action and Preventive Action in a timely manner by the Management System Officer (MSO). Customer feedback is solicited to conform with the requirements of standards ISO/IEC 17025:2017, “General Requirements for the Competence and Testing of Calibration Laboratories”, and “SCC Requirements and Guidance for the Accreditation of Testing Laboratories – April 2018.”
Process
The MSO of the CNSC Laboratory conducts an electronic survey annually to collect feedback from CNSC staff members who have utilized the services of the Laboratory, and to collect any suggestions for improvement of the services, as per section 9.2.1 of the LMS. Microsoft® Outlook based customer satisfaction survey form was used in this most recent customer satisfaction survey conducted in last year. Note that this form was designed and introduced in calendar year 2018 considering feedback from the customers to introduce a simple tool to provide feedback to the Laboratory. The Outlook email Voting button with a custom design offers to the customer to describe impressions of the services as Excellent, Good, Fair or No Impression, as described in the CNSC Laboratory Customer Satisfaction Survey Form F407.001 (e-Doc# 4429053) which was used in previous years between 2014 and 2016. In addition, once the customer selected to respond to the invitation email with the selected impression of the service, the customer was offered an option to edit the response which may include any comments a customer may wish to have for the improvement of services. After successfully conducting customer satisfaction surveys for years 2017 and 2018, CNSC Laboratory Customer Satisfaction Survey Form F407.001 (e-Doc# 4429053) has now been retired and is no longer valid and available to use. The survey results are used as an input into the management review process following the Laboratory procedure P415 Management Review (e-Doc# 4424239). Any improvements suggested in the survey are implemented considering the available resources and benefit to the larger group of customers through the Laboratory procedure P409 Corrective Action and Preventive Action (e-Doc# 4425262), and then followed and monitored through internal assessment process.
METHODOLOGY
The following preparatory steps were taken prior to execution of the survey:
1) A comprehensive list of customers that requested and received instrument services from the CNSC laboratory (i.e., the service “requestor”) during the 2018 calendar year was compiled from laboratory service records.
2) An invitation email was drafted in Microsoft® Outlook with a custom design Voting button, to be sent to each customer as a formal request for their participation in the annual customer satisfaction survey.
3) A telephone call/voice message was drafted to remind the customer the next day after the initiation of the survey.
4) A follow-up invitation email was drafted, to be sent as a reminder to each customer who had not responded to the initial request within a week time-period.
5) The list of customers was provided to the Laboratory’s administration staff to send the invitation email via Microsoft® Outlook with a custom design Voting button and other instructions regarding the data integrity of the feedback provided by the customers. Administration staff was to save the completed forms in the central electronic repository as e-access documents with appropriate access rights for maintaining lists of respondents and records as customers respond to the survey.
The following steps were taken subsequent to execution of the survey:
1) The feedback provided by the customers was analyzed and a summary (e-Doc# 5763601) was prepared to discuss the results of the survey with the stakeholders in order to implement the suggestions and any corrective actions to be taken to address the comments.
2) The results of the survey were summarized for the preparation of this summary report of the customer survey, as presented in this document.
3) If appropriate, an opportunity for improvement (OFI) as identified in the customer survey regarding LIMS requester module in addition to others as those identified in section 5 of this report will be filed using the Laboratory procedure P409 under the LMS and will be followed up to monitor the effectiveness of the implemented actions.
3 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
3.1 Cohort
The cohort identified for the calendar year 2018 satisfaction survey numbered 60 customers in total, all of whom requested and received instrument services via 146 service requests fulfilled by the laboratory during the calendar year.
The demographic of the survey cohort represented a multi-disciplined sampling of individuals from various divisions and directorates within the technical support and regulatory operations branches of the CNSC, and from all regions of Canada in which the CNSC executes its’ mandate.
The services requested by the survey cohort during the calendar year included, but were not limited, to the following:
- Provision of calibration and repair services for field instruments, such as personal electronic dosimeters, gamma survey meters, contamination meters, neutron survey meters, passive detectors – bubble detectors, and radon progeny concentration monitoring equipment;
- Provision of inspection outfitting services, including logistical planning for shipping and return of field instruments and tools that are delivered on site by the laboratory, in step with the inspectors’ travel and divisional licensee inspection schedules;
- Provision of subject matter technical assistance and technical reviews regarding field instruments, radiation measurement, and licensee documents
- Provision of research and purchasing services to meet specified customer requirements regarding field instrumentation
- Provision of ‘rush’ services to meet immediate and urgent customer requirements
- Provision of outreach outfitting services that included field instruments, radioactive artifacts, and technical advice on the use of those items in outreach activities
3.2 Annual Customer Satisfaction Survey
The survey was executed during the spring and summer in 2018. All customers who were identified as requestors of instrument services during the calendar year 2018 were contacted via Microsoft® Outlook email with a formal invitation for their participation in the survey. Customers were given the choice to describe the impression of services as Excellent, Good, Fair or No Impression using the Voting button as well as an option to include any comments a customer may wish to have for the improvement of services.
A telephone call/voice message was used to remind the customer within few days after the initiation of the survey. Those customers who did not respond within few weeks of the initial formal request for participation were sent the reminder email in late summer same year. 3.3 Analysis 3.3.1 Customer Response to the Survey Table 1 illustrates the proportion of customers who responded to the survey. The total cohort response yielded 43 responses and 8 non-responses, of possible 51 responses, for a final customer response rate of 84%. Out of 60 customers who were originally identified to seek feedback, 9 of them were not available to respond either because they were no longer working for CNSC or on extended leave. This response rate was relatively higher than that of previous surveys conducted for calendar years 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, as illustrated in Table 2. It also demonstrates an increasing trend since the inception of survey in 2014 as demonstrated in Figure 1. This increased participation in the survey could be apparently attributed to number of factors including the simplified form used this year as well as follow up phone calls/voice messages given to customers after initiating the survey. Table 1: Analysis of the responses Number of Responses Percentage of Customers Responded Total 43 out of 51 84%
Table 1: Analysis of the responses
| Number of Responses | Percentage of Customers Responded | |
| Total | 43 out of 51 | 84% |
Table 2: Comparison of current customer’s responses to previous years
| Survey Year | Percentage of Customers Responded |
| 2014 | 54% |
| 2015 | 55% |
| 2016 | 65% |
| 2017 | 77% |
| 2018 | 84% |
1.1.1 Customer Response: Rating of Laboratory Services
The customer rating of laboratory services is accounted in Table 3. This table shows that 77% of the respondents rated the services provided as Excellent, and other 23% as Good. There were no negative ratings (i.e.: less than a Fair rating) received or noted during the survey. This trend is consistent with those in calendar years 2015 and 2016 when there were no ratings below Good.
Table 3: Rating of services
| Rating | Number of Responses | Percentage of Responses |
| Fair | 0/43 | 0% |
| Good | 10/43 | 23% |
| Excellent | 33/43 | 77% |
1.1.1 Customer Response: Usage of Laboratory Services
To gain better insight into the nature of the services customers have used during the calendar year 2018, Laboratory service records as those maintained in a dedicated Microsoft® Excel spreadsheet ([Pcdocs://E-DOCS/5451342/R F500.4.LABREQ]) under the management system was used to extract this information about the category of service which includes calibration, field instrument loan, or any other service customers requested during the calendar year.
Table 4 illustrates the proportion of respondents who utilized various services under the instrument management and calibration services. Within the category of the “Field Instrument Loan” service type, customers were also provided with calibration services in order to meet the regulatory requirements. This indicates that out of the total number of customers who responded to the survey, 95% of the respondents either utilized calibration or loan services or a combination of these services.
Table 4: Usage ̶ type of laboratory services
| Type of services | Number of Responses | Percentage of Responses |
| Calibration | 12 | 28% |
| Field Instrument Loan | 25 | 58% |
| Both Calibration and Instrument Loan | 4 | 9% |
| Other | 2 | 5% |
1.1.1 Customer Response: Comments Regarding Laboratory Services
Any additional customer comments sought to qualify information in addition to the customers’ singular rating of laboratory services, are considered to belong in one of three groups: improvement or preventive / constructive comments, complimentary comments, and no comment. Thirty nine out of forty three customers did not provide any comments other than rating the services as Fair, Good or Excellent. Two customers (2 out of 4) who responded to the survey with additional comments elaborated further on the rating and provided complimentary comments in addition to some additional suggestions for improvement.
The customer comments on laboratory services are accounted in Table 5. A brief summary of the comments is provided in the appendix Table A.1 at the end of this report. Detailed comments are available in another document ([Pcdocs://E-DOCS/5763601/R E-DOCS-#5763601])
Table 5: Types of comments regarding laboratory services
| Type of comments | Number of Comments | Number of Respondents |
| Complimentary | 3 | 3 |
| Preventive or Improvement | 2 | 2 |
| No Comments | 39 | 39 |
1.1.1.1 Customer Response: Suggestions for Improvements
Each category of comments from respondents, as summarized in Table 5 and Table A.1 of the appendix, generated a number of feedback suggestions which are summarized in Table 6.
Table 6: Broad categories of comments
| Category | Number of Comments |
| Easy accessibility – upgrading Laboratory webpage | 1 |
1.2 Laboratory Response: Implementation of suggestions for improvement
Note this survey constitutes the fifth survey CNSC Laboratory has conducted starting 2014 and serves as a milestone in terms of continuing excellence in customer support with products and services that meets the universally accepted global standards.
Though it is a small pool of customers, it is not difficult to establish trends from these surveys over the period of last five years. The information available from customer feedback is very important to plan for the continual improvement of the services.
The Laboratory is committed to customer service excellence and has taken steps in response to customer suggestions for service improvements as outlined in this section.
1.2.1 Easy Accessibility
One suggestion pertains to easy accessibility to information including list of readily available artefacts and other resources which could be used in outreach activities. Though this comment is not directly related to calibration services, CNSC Laboratory will follow up further to accommodate this suggestion for improvement.
In previous customer satisfaction surveys in 2014, CNSC received similar comments regarding informing customers about any change in Laboratory processes which involves customers directly, providing links on BORIS to technical manuals and specifications for the equipment maintained in the inventory, as well as using web-based applications rather than emails for submission of service requests. This could be addressed by updating the information available on Laboratory webpage on BORIS.
In response to the customers’ satisfaction survey from 2014, CNSC Laboratory already provided online library of instruments, with specifications (CNSC Laboratory Services). The link opens an e-access directory and the customer might have difficulties scrolling through the directory to select the instrument.
1.2.2 Sharing information regarding instrument response
Although CNSC Laboratory encouraged customers to report malfunctions of the instruments, problems related to the quality of calibration of survey meters or any other observation with impact on the quality of measurements, one customer chose to comment on the under-response of an instrument due to excessive dead time through the customer survey. This customer also suggested information sharing when an instrument tended to under-respond or over-respond in particular radiation fields. Same customer also chose to comment on limitations of a particular model of survey meter in strong magnetic fields and also comments on performance of a particular model not within the tolerance of the model.
Particular model which customer commented about performed as per requirement under manufacturer’s specification. This particular model is very sensitive due to large a 2″×2″(5.1 cm×5.1 cm) NaI(Tl) crystal and is meant to be used as radioisotope identification device rather than a gamma survey meter to identify the radioisotope even in extremely small quantities. There are other gamma survey meters available upon request which can operate within the range from 0.1 µSv/h to 10 mSv/h. There are ion chamber based gamma survey meters available to operate within higher ranges of ambient dose equivalent rates as 50 mSv/h or 500 mSv/h. Laboratory can also provide gamma survey meters with accredited calibration under ISO/IEC 17025 which are equipped with a smaller NaI(Tl) crystal and a miniature PMT which still offers close to two order of magnitude higher sensitivity compared to a similar dimension GM Tube but can operate within 100 mSv/h.
The CNSC Laboratory also realizes that the customer, who noticed the survey meter under-response at the licensee site, did not know how to properly report this kind of situation (incident) to the CNSC Laboratory. An enhanced webpage will enable customers to raise such issues and get them addressed immediately, rather than wait for a customer survey. CNSC Laboratory
2 SUMMARY
The intention of the customer survey was to seek meaningful customer feedback which could be analyzed and incorporated to improve the core instrument calibration services and the future perceived rating of laboratory customer services. The objectives of the customer survey were successfully achieved.
In general, respondents have expressed a positive view of the services rendered and the staff delivering the services, as concluded from the high level of satisfaction of those customers who rated services as Excellent or Good, and recognized a positive impact of the provision of high quality Laboratory services. The Laboratory will strive to maintain this high level of satisfaction in the way it operates and delivers its services.
A comparison of the customer’s rating of the Laboratory services from calendar years 2014 through 2018 surveys is presented in Table 7. In 2015, 2016, there were no customers who rated the services as Fair, however in 2014 and in 2017 surveys a small fraction of the respondents (8% and 3% respectively) gave such rating, mainly due to a long turnaround time or not meeting customers’ expectations in regards to schedule agreed upon with the customer. More than 50% of customers consistently rated services as Excellent throughout 2014 to 2018 indicating service standards and commitments were maintained at the highest level as a result of steps taken after the 2014 survey. There is a growing trend for improvement and maintaining excellence of services to the high level of satisfaction of customers over last several years. CNSC Laboratory will continue to strive for the next level of excellence in serving the customers and meeting their needs under its mandate.
Table 7: Comparison of customers’ rating of services
| Percentage of Responses | |||||
| Rating | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
| Fair | 8% | 0% | 0% | 3% | 0% |
| Good | 42% | 24% | 21% | 35% | 23% |
| Excellent | 50% | 76% | 79% | 62% | 77% |
The survey also provided customers with the opportunity to raise comments. As a result, the customers provided suggestions for improvements which can be broadly categorized into two group. The Laboratory has already implemented some of the suggested improvements and is in the process of implementing other improvements as suggested by the customers in a timely manner.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Customer feedback is very important since it provides the Laboratory with valuable information about the services the Laboratory offers, insight into customer perceptions and expectations, and specific indicators of areas where the Laboratory needs to improve to satisfy customers’ perceived desires.
The response rate of the customer survey conducted in 2019, based on the customers who utilized the services in the calendar year of 2018, was calculated by dividing the number of respondents by the number of customers who were invited for participation in the survey. The response rate of the survey is 84%, which can be considered good for our purposes and an indication of an increasing trend of participation in the survey compared to previous years between 2014 and 2017. Increased participation of the staff this year in the customer satisfaction survey could be attributed to the approach adopted in last survey and this survey which includes
· Microsoft® Outlook email Voting button in place of a fillable Microsoft® Word form
· Telephone calls/voice message as a reminder
· Simplified email reminder
CNSC will continue to use the Microsoft® Outlook email with Voting button for annual customer satisfaction surveys. However, some customers prefer to provide feedback through emails upon completion of the services, rather than in an annual survey. Communication with customers is essential and every feedback should be maintained and taken into account with the analysis of the results from the annual survey. In order to capture such feedback, MSO will design a form based on Microsoft® Outlook email which will be sent to customer after the completion of each service request. Feedback received from customer in response to these frequent surveys will be maintained and analyzed along with the annual customer satisfaction survey.
It is important to introduce efficiencies in the implementation of the management system. CNSC Laboratory will develop a template which can be used for the analysis of the feedback received from customers in a consistent way and is to be used for compilation of the report for customer satisfaction survey which is presented at the annual management review conducted every year in the month of February.