The usefulness of customer surveys

A  firm that I know of have employed some Indian consultants to carry out a survey on customer satisfaction of their corporate clients.

I almost fell off my chair when I heard this. Does such an exercise serve much of a purpose?

The number of customers concerned is not very large to begin with, perhaps 100-200. Second, they are existing customers, so it is the responsibility of the account managers to provide the necessary feedback. Even if this channel was not working, at the worst, a tracking of complaints or call centre records should give some indication of obvious problems.

Perhaps management has become aware of a problem and either wants it properly identified or assessed? That would be reasonable, except that I am personally aware of the atrocious level of service being dished out and the innumerable complaints that flood the call centre.

Is this then case of a company out of touch with its customers grasping at straws?  The use of foreign consultants may assure them that the survey is independent, but does this not lead to a possibility of further confusion, if the consultant misses something due to lack of cultural awareness?

Would anyone in the marketing or sales field enlighten me if there is anything more to a customer survey that I may have missed?