Posts Tagged ‘incentivizing’
Survey SAYS….!
Customers are the secret to success.
We’ve been doing lots of research. Today’s question is: When and how to survey customers?
There is just so much information that can be gathered from the web, from libraries, from competitors. At some point or another it’s time to go to the source, to the customers themselves.
There are simple and inexpensive ways to get this done. Of course this post presumes that you already have a few customers. Many start-ups have a few customers in hand. It’s those few customers that have provided the new entrepreneur with both experience and courage.
The first question is: What do you want to know from your customers that you can’t find anywhere else? Asking customers directly is something that can be done now and then. But do it sparingly so as not to become a pest.
Try this. Put together a few questions. Are they yes-or-no questions? Multiple choice? Essay? Are they ambiguous questions? The hardest part is figuring out what you want to know and making it clear so that you can get good information back. It is mind-boggling as to how simple questions can be misunderstood. Try the questions out on a few friends and family to see if they understand the question or see ambiguity. If they misunderstand the question, simple as you think it may be, ask them why. (Don’t tell them how lame they are, find out how lame your question is!) Make the question more clear.
The second question is how many customers can you survey? The actual number– 5, 10, 25, 100– will have a significant impact on how you put your survey together.
Five or ten? Call them up and ask. Better yet, take them to lunch and interview them face to face. Take notes. Put the answers side by side so that all the answers to Question 1 are together and all the answers to Question 2 are together. Read, reread. What have you learned?
Twenty-five, a hundred, twenty thousand? Maybe a multiple choice option through email (such as www.surveymonkey.com , for example). The results will be tallied up for you. Are your customers trooping through your door? Ask them to fill out a short (short!) form in exchange for a coupon or other incentive.
Think about what you really want to know. Be prepared to put what they say into action. There is nothing more disappointing to a customer to be asked for their opinion on how to make your offering better and then you do nothing with the information.
