Why Surveying Matters
What is the single most important thing you can do as a business owner? The answer? Keep your ear to the marketplace by listening to your customers.
Henry Ford’s Mistake,
In the early 1920’s Henry Ford launched his assembly-line produced Model T. The car was relatively inexpensive, yet of good quality for the time. In order to reach production goals, the company decided to offer only one color of the car—black. “You could have any color you wanted, as long as it was black”, the saying went. With this strategy, Ford quickly dominated the market, capturing up to 57% of the car market at its height. It was a brilliant initial strategy, but Ford eventually faltered. He simply forgot to listen to his customers that were asking for additional color options. General Motors saw this trend, and capitalized on it, producing cars in a multitude of color options and quickly taking back much of the Ford market share gains. With all the innovative ideas, industry-changing processes, and brilliant strategies Ford came up with, he forgot the most basic principle—the business owner rarely knows better than his or her customers.
Surveying Your Clients,
There are a few ways to listen to your clients. Most business owners, at least in the early stages, maintain contact with and speak with at least a few clients each week. This is a good start, but it is not enough to speak with only your large clients or clients that are already highly engaged in your brand —as these clients often have very different requirements than an average user.
One of the best ways to be able to get feedback from your full client base is by sending a survey. Surveys can be sent either by mail or via the web. Web-based surveys are recommended over printed surveys as it is much less expensive and provides a higher response rate and a quicker return of information. However, as is the rule with any well-rounded campaign, a mix of online and offline efforts will achieve more significant data insight. In sending a survey, there are a few questions that can be especially helpful to ask.
These questions include:
What do you like about our product or service?
How do you use our product or service?
How can we improve our product or service?
Is there anything we can do to improve your satisfaction with our product or service?
Are there any other services or products we could offer that you might be interested in?
It is recommended to leave these types questions open ended. You can also ask non open ended questions such as “On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with our customer service?” or “Which of these five features add-ons would benefit you most?”
Once you have deployed your survey, the next step is to wait for the responses to come in. While this may vary by company, typically 90% of the total responses will come in during the first 72 hours after deployment of a web-based survey. With a proper survey platform, you can always review and export the results to Excel at any time whether you want to review the initial responses after an hour or download the final results after a week. Response rates for web-based surveys can range from 5% to 50% depending on the number of questions, the type of list, and how well your customers know you.
Reviewing the Results,
Once you have the results, the next and very important step is to review them. If you have more than a few dozen responses, create a Feedback Summary Document that categorizes each reported method for improvement and tabulate the number of times a similar request comes up. At the end of this process, you’ll be able to get a very good idea of why your clients like your product or service and what they feel can be done to improve it, probably the two most important pieces of information you can have as a business owner. With this information you can create an improved roadmap for your product that will allow you to stay competitive and provide the product that your customers want.
In addition to being able to create this improved roadmap, you’ll also likely have a number of very good testimonials or case study material that you can use from the answers to the “what do you like” and “how do you use it” questions.
Implementing the Changes,
Once you have a good idea of what the most requested improvements are, you can consider how and when to implement these changes. Depending on your production or development cycle, it may take days or months to make some of the requested changes. Know that not all clients will want the same things. Some may even want changes or new features that conflict—causing you to have to consider offering multiple product lines or completing custom work.
When you have made some or all of the requested improvements be sure to get additional feedback from your clients prior to launching your new version or improved offering. One of the larger mistakes that is not getting sufficient client feedback prior to launching a new version of product to the full user base. If a few clients are allowed access to review the new version prior to launch, a number of the bugs and headaches that occurr after the launch may be averted. In your organization, depending on what type of product you are selling, it may be worthwhile to organize a beta test showing an early version of your new offering to some clients or hold a focus group session to get the very valuable post-change feedback prior to launch. Giving your client, and prospects for that matter, a role in the development of your product will help them feel valued and also be more likely to want to purchase your new product after launch.
Here is a review of the seven step feedback process:
1. Ask the questions in a web-based survey
2. Create a feedback summary document from the results
3. Implement the changes
4. Get client feedback on the changes
5. Make final modifications
6. Go live with the changed product or service
7. Wait a few months and then restart the process
Listen to your customers and you’ll get the feedback you need to make customer-centric business decisions that will allow you to increase your client satisfaction, lifetime value, and retention rate.
Tips:
• Survey your clients at least every year, preferably every 6 months.
• Use a web-based survey tool or a mix of web and offline (handout, direct mail, business-reply) to improve data insight.
• Create separate surveys for the customers of each major type of product or service you offer.
Be sure to include questions asking both what your clients like about your product or service as well as any suggestions they have for improving it.
