Asking customers for their opinion is one of the most profitable things a company can do. The cost of a survey is minimal. The cost of not running one is considerable. And yet, most French SMEs and mid-sized companies only practice this exercise occasionally and superficially. Understanding why, and how to equip this listening so that it delivers real value, is a strategic topic for leaders who want to run their company on facts rather than on hunches.
The illusion of the leader who knows
A widespread belief holds that an SME leader, through proximity to their market and customers, already knows what there is to know. This belief is reassuring but empirically false. Behavioral studies on managerial perception show a systematic gap between what leaders think their customers think, and what customers actually think. The gap generally concerns three dimensions.
The first dimension is relative satisfaction. Leaders almost systematically overestimate their customers' satisfaction. A leader who believes their customers are eighty-five percent satisfied finds, once measured, that they are at sixty-five or seventy. This gap of fifteen to twenty points is not a detail. It represents a massive competitive vulnerability.
The second dimension is the identification of weak points. Leaders generally know well what they do well. They identify less well what they do poorly, because dissatisfied customers do not systematically complain. They leave silently, and the leader never knows why.
The third dimension is the valuation of the components of the offering. Leaders frequently overinvest in dimensions to which their customers attach little value, and underinvest in dimensions that are crucial to those same customers. This misallocation of effort, invisible for lack of measurement, erodes profitability.
The Net Promoter Score, a true management tool
Among satisfaction measurement tools, the Net Promoter Score has become the reference indicator. Its simplicity is its strength: a single question, "on a scale of zero to ten, would you recommend our company to a friend or colleague", followed by an open question on the reason for the score.
- The classic calculation subtracts the percentage of detractors (scores zero to six) from the percentage of promoters (scores nine and ten)
- The result ranges from minus one hundred (disaster) to plus one hundred (excellence)
- A positive score is fine, a score above thirty is good, above fifty is excellent
- What makes the customer recommendation index operational is not so much the absolute number as its dynamics
- Measured regularly, on comparable cohorts, it becomes a management indicator of perceived quality
- A five-point drop over a quarter is a warning signal that deserves investigation
- A rebound after an initiative is factual validation
The post-assignment satisfaction survey
Beyond the customer recommendation index, more detailed surveys make it possible to precisely identify areas for improvement. A service SME closing an assignment can systematically send a short survey to the few people who worked with it, covering five or six dimensions: technical quality of the work, meeting deadlines, quality of communication, listening ability, perceived value for the price, recommendation.
This systematic survey, ten minutes for the customer, brings up over time signals that no one would give spontaneously. It also makes it possible, cross-referenced with CRM data, to identify which internal staff, which types of assignments, which customer segments generate the best or the worst feedback. This level of analytical detail, impossible without tooling, becomes a quality management discipline.
Listening to lost prospects
A particularly valuable but under-practiced use is listening to prospects who did not buy. An SME that lost a tender, or that did not convert a prospect after several meetings, can send a short survey to the prospect concerned. Why were we not selected? Which criteria made the difference? What would you do differently in our place?
The response rate to this type of survey is lower than for customer surveys (between ten and thirty percent), but the answers obtained are of remarkable strategic value. They give direct insight into the company's competitive positioning, without the filter of internal hunches.
Listening to employees
Odoo's Surveys module also makes it possible to organize internal listening. Annual engagement survey, flash poll on a specific topic, 360-degree evaluation, measurement of quality of work life. For French mid-sized companies subject to psychosocial risk prevention obligations, this systematic listening has become both a good management practice and a compliance element.
The advantage of a tool integrated with the information system is the ability to cross-reference feedback with other data: by department, by tenure, by job type, by site. This level of analytical detail makes it possible to identify pockets of tension or positive dynamics that would go unnoticed in overall averages.
The discipline of continuous listening
Structured listening is not a one-off exercise. It is a discipline built over time. A few practical principles help establish it. First, build surveys into operational processes rather than organizing them as separate events: automatic survey on delivery of an order, automatic survey at project close, automatic survey on resolution of a support ticket. Second, systematically handle feedback: a customer who complains deserves a call back, an interesting suggestion deserves a reply. Without follow-up, listening becomes a cosmetic act. Third, share the results with the teams: positive customer feedback fuels engagement, negative feedback fuels improvement.
A strategic decision
Putting tools behind organized listening is not an IT project. It is a management choice. Companies that make it a lasting discipline build a competitive advantage that is hard to catch up with. They know their market better than their competitors, they adjust their offerings faster, they retain their customers better. For French leaders who want to put their SME or mid-sized company on a solid growth trajectory, this discipline deserves the investment it demands.