This is one of the first considerations when planning a customer satisfaction survey. 

Think about your customers, and how you manage relationships.  Do you want close relationships with them?  Do you want to regularly stay in touch, either face to face, phone, eshots etc?  Do you want to actively develop business relationships? 

If you are finding yourself saying yes to the above questions, then you should be thinking about a telephone based customer satisfaction survey. 

The number of surveys does not have to match the total number of customers.  For example, holiday companies, airlines, car hire etc could not possibly survey every single customer, and B2C relationships are different to B2B.  In this case, telephone surveys are really powerful when carried out with a sample of customers and feedback from other customers can be managed by email, online or paper. 

If it has been some time since you undertook a survey, and you are not sure about the quality of the data, we would recommend that you start with a data cleanse.  This can be done by phone, or we can also cleanse the data electronically and also screen against the CTPS register (Corporate Telephone Preference Service) for B2B campaigns and for B2C campaigns against the TPS register (Telephone Preference Register).  

Your timescale might be crucial, as the results of your customer satisfaction survey may well influence other business decisions.  However, don't be rushed - the survey needs to be well designed.  Here at Leadline we can undertake pure design, but really the best value will be gained by us managing the survey from design to reports.  At each stage, you will be kept updated.