Surveys, Complaints, and the Value of Regularly Scheduled Listening
Who doesn’t get excited about survey responses, right? Right?!
In case it’s not coming through on screen, that was written in a sarcastic tone. Creating and managing customer surveys online (or paper, or phone surveys) is rarely earthshaking. Survey response rates are often low, and responses tend to roll in rather slowly. But the insight from even a very small number of respondents can be invaluable to planning and executing your marketing and sales strategy.
Customer Surveys Are Worthwhile
Low response rates do not necessarily indicate failure. The voice of the customer always has value. An ongoing collection of input (and responding to that input) positions your company to be successful in several key areas.
Our advice? Keep asking questions. And even more important: Listen.
Of course there are things you can do to improve your customer surveys and response rates. See below for tips to improve your surveys and feedback forms. But remember, how you handle the process and what you do with the responses is every bit as important as the collection process. To put it simply, you need to make listening to the customer a habit.
Customer Stories = Marketing Gold
If you don’t already monitor your “listening” channels, make a list and check it twice (or more) in the coming year. A robust website should have several touchpoints or data collection tools. Consider how you use those on your website:
- RFP/RFQ Buttons
- Contact Forms
- Social Sharing icons
- Sign up for newsletters/promotional communications
- Thank you for shopping with us auto-responders
- Sale cancelled/abandoned cart follow-up emails with surveys
Employees, Vendors and Partners Have Stories Too
Speaking of the voice of the customer, one thing we hear repeatedly from our small business customers is how valuable it is to have regularly scheduled marketing meetings with a team of people – both internal staff (a cross-functional team is great) and in-sourced marketing experts. In monthly marketing meetings with our clients, we consider all customer reviews, complaints, survey results, anecdotes, and other input, and discuss it briefly in the opening few minutes of a monthly marketing meeting. That input informs not only marketing strategies but often, also the company’s overall business direction.
Hidden Value, Surprising Benefits of Using Surveys in Your Business
We say surveys are a marketing “gold mine” because surveys –
- Provide a mechanism to listen to customers
- Personalize your brand
- Strengthen your relationship with your customers. (Even if they don’t complete your survey, making one available creates a line of communication.)
Listen, and Share
While constantly running promotions and discounting your products is not recommended, listening all the time absolutely is. We’ll go so far as to call it a best practice. But, listening isn’t enough. Listening and using customer feedback to improve operations isn’t even enough. You have to share, too.
By the way, this is one of the reasons why we like Yext Ultimate Reviews so much – the powerful tool makes getting client reviews and adding them to your website easy and attractive – and because of its design, businesses that use it see increased natural search traffic to their sites. More on that in a future post.
Letting your customers and prospects know what you’ve learned from them is part of the process. People like to know that they’ve been heard; they’re interested in hearing what others think about the same thing; and they LOVE IT when a company makes changes based on their imput. So sharing on your website, newsletter, social channels, and in face to face marketing events (like trade shows or at point-of-purchase displays) is critically important to getting the best ROI on your survey program.
When you continually seeking feedback, ideas and other input from customers you’ll gain insight that will help you make good business decisions. You’ll also gain a reputation as a company that’s receptive, and easy to work with.
Not a bad way to start a New Year.
Regularly-scheduled meetings are a hallmark of the JointSourcing client relationship. We are committed to listening to our clients, and to their customers, in order to recognize and respond quickly and wisely to changing market demands and opportunities. Need a partner to help you listen and respond to your customers in order to grow your business? We’d love to help you start a conversation with your customers – and meet your sales growth goals.
Tips to Make Your Customer Surveys More Useful |
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Sales Renewal’s insight:
When you continually seeking feedback, ideas and other input from customers you’ll gain insight that will help you make good business decisions and develop a winning marketing strategy. You’ll also gain a reputation as a company that’s receptive, responsive, and easy to work with.
2014’s Best SalesMemes
We’ve been having a lot of fun with SalesMemes this year and the reaction has been great (keep those suggestions coming!).
Here are a few of the best from 2014 … if we missed any of your favorites, let us know! And don’t forget to subscribe to our Growth Spurts blog so that you see each Friday’s new one!
Visit http://www.SalesMemes.com every Friday to see the latest SalesMemes: the best and worst ideas to increase sales. See more #GoodMarketerGrace, and her colleagues #SmugMarketerSam, #BadExecutionBob, #GoodExecutionErica, #HucksterHank and #TrustworthyTom.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Some of 2014’s Best SalesMemes: funny ways to grow, and NOT grow sales).
Happy Holidays from everyone at Sales Renewal!
How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 56 Face-to-Face Power
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Like a good pair of black leather shoes, trade shows are not going out of style. We know that in our increasingly digital world, the power of face-to-face marketing can be overlooked, but given trade shows’ benefits for many businesses we think that’s a mistake. Our recent guest post, Recognizing the Role of Trade Shows in a Successful Marketing Program, was written for those testing the trade show waters as well as companies looking for better outcomes and ROI.
Visit http://www.SalesMemes.com every Friday to see the latest SalesMemes: the best and worst ideas to increase sales. See more #GoodMarketerGrace, and her colleagues #SmugMarketerSam, #BadExecutionBob, #GoodExecutionErica, #HucksterHank and #TrustworthyTom.
How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 27 – Sleezy Analytics
Sales Renewal’s insight:
#HucksterHank would also like to share some “analytics” about a piece of land in Florida he has for sale.
If you want to accurately determine the ROI of your marketing endeavors, your analytics must include all your sales and lead channels, as we explored in Marketing ROI without Call Tracking is Like Baseball Stats that Exclude Away Games.
Check http://www.SalesMemes.com every Friday to see the latest SalesMemes: the best and worst ideas to increase sales. See more #HucksterHank, and his colleagues: #BadExecutionBob #GoodExecutionErica, #SmugMarketerSam and #TrustworthyTom.
How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 55 – Turkey Bosses
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Do you think he cooked his own goose too?
For a Thanksgiving post NOT involving #BadExecutionBob’s bosses, check out this week’s 6 T-U-R-K-E-Y Tips We’re Thankful for in Our Online Marketing, Analytics-Driven World post.
Visit http://www.SalesMemes.com every Friday to see the latest SalesMemes: the best and worst ideas to increase sales. See more #BadExecutionBob and his colleagues #GoodExecutionErica, #SmugMarketerSam, #HucksterHank, and #TrustworthyTom.
How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 54 – Clear Calls-to-Action
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Do you think he uses invisible ink on their direct mail pieces too?
Before your customers get to your Calls-to-Action (which we hope aren’t transparent!), make sure you’ve properly optimized your message to have maximum impact, as we discussed in Hone Your Marketing Message – Follow These Four Levels Of Communication
Visit http://www.SalesMemes.com every Friday to see the latest SalesMemes: the best and worst ideas to increase sales. See more #BadExecutionBob and his colleagues #SmugMarketerSam, #HucksterHank, #GoodMarketerGrace, #GoodExecutionErica, and #TrustworthyTom.
How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 6 – Traffic Up 3x, Sales Up 0
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Who needs to sell anything when you’ve got a store full of customers right?
Don’t forget to keep your eyes on the prize: website traffic and search engine rankings are worthless unless they end up generating leads and sales … A point we also recently made in SEO Doesn’t Stop with a Good Keyword Ranking
Visit http://www.SalesMemes.com every Friday to see the latest SalesMemes: the best and worst ideas to increase sales. See more #HucksterHank and his colleagues #SmugMarketerSam, #BadExecutionBob, #GoodMarketerGrace, #GoodExecutionErica, and #TrustworthyTom.
How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 53 Ask Before Doing
Sales Renewal’s insight:
What a novel idea, asking your target market what they want before doing it!
To see how Sales Renewal has put this into action for a client’s Resource section, read Survey Says …
Visit http://www.SalesMemes.com every Friday to see the latest SalesMemes: the best and worst ideas to increase sales. See more #GoodExecutionErica and her colleagues #SmugMarketerSam, #HucksterHank, #GoodMarketerGrace, #BadExecutionBob and #TrustworthyTom.
How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 19 Team Halloween
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Makes you think about all those company team building exercises doesn’t it?
To prevent these kinds of naming mistakes, read Choosing the Right Domain Name.
Visit http://www.SalesMemes.com every Friday to see the latest SalesMemes: the best and worst ideas to increase sales. See more #SmugMarketerSam and his colleagues #BadExecutionBob, #GoodExecutionErica, #HucksterHank, , #GoodMarketerGrace, and #TrustworthyTom.
How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 52 Unresponsive to Clients
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Do you think he drives a horse & buggy instead of a car too?
If your site isn’t easily accessible and navigable on mobile devices, you’re forgoing way too many opportunities to grow your community and sales. Here are 4 Simple Ways to Test if Your Website is Mobile-Friendly (aka, has a Responsive Design).
Visit http://www.SalesMemes.com every Friday to see the latest SalesMemes: the best and worst ideas to increase sales. See more #SmugMarketerSam and his colleagues #BadExecutionBob, #GoodExecutionErica, #HucksterHank, , #GoodMarketerGrace, and #TrustworthyTom.