A Penny for Her Thoughts

Using Online Surveys to Get Inside Your Customers’ Minds
By Heidi Richards Mooney

“Look for results that matter to you, to your company, to the bottom line  and especially to the customer.” 

A few years ago I had the opportunity to interview Dana Meade, Co-vice President for Zoomerang during a teleconference hosted by the Women’s Ecommerce Association (www.WECAI.org).  During our time together, Ms. Meade shared with our seminar attendees how using Zoomerang (or any survey tool for that matter) could help a company grow, or even get back on track when they were experiencing a “lull” in business.

An advocate for learning all one can about the people most likely to buy my products and services, surveys seem like the perfect way to get to know what the customer really wants – and doesn’t want.  Ms. Meade shared with our seminar attendees how using Zoomerang (or any survey tool for that matter) could help a company grow, or even get back on track when they were experiencing a “lull” in business. Zoomerang, an easy to use, Internet-based survey tool allows users to design and send surveys and analyze the results in real time.” 

In addition to promoting business, there are many other uses for surveys, including: Customer Satisfaction, Marketing, Media and Publishing, Political and Social Concerns, Parties and Events, Quizzes, meetings, and much more.  One of the reasons I like Zoomerang is that it has over 100 “ready to use” templates which you can utilize, or modify to suit your needs.  This may sound like an ad for Zoomerang, however – I have used a couple of the competitor’s tools and find Zoomerang to be the easiest to use and most comprehensive of all.

I have been using the tool to survey my customers since mid 2005 and have had much greater response than I did with other surveys we created and posted to our website.  The first online survey we created focused on the value our members receive from our Wire-side Chats (teleconferences).  We sent to our database of 300+ attendees asking for their opinions on the topics we had sponsored to date.  We also asked their input on which topics and experts they would like to hear from in the future.  We received almost 20% response rate – enabling us to plan future events to meet the needs of our customers – our membership base. In addition to the online survey, some members contacted us via email to further expand on the topic.

There are several benefits to using online surveys for your business. In addition to helping you grow your business, it is a great promotional tool, you can see how you “rate” with your customers and prospects and you can then use this information to increase loyalty among those same customers. Perhaps the best news is that the response rate for online surveys compared to printed surveys can be considerably higher – from 10% to as much as 50% response rate when other factors are taken into consideration.

Here are 15 tips to keep in mind when constructing and promoting your survey:

1.   Keep it short – a 5-10 minute survey is the norm, anything beyond 10 minutes and the abandon rate goes way up.

2.   Close-ended questions will give you more qualitative feedback than open-ended questions.  You can follow up with a why or how question.

3.   Put a great deal of thought into what it is you want to accomplish with the survey and what you plan to do with the information once you receive it.  If you don’t have an action plan, the survey is virtually worthless, except as an FYI.

4.   Avoid using jargon – make the questions clear and easy to understand.

5.   Give multiple-choice answers with a choice of “other” for those things that just don’t fit. Follow up with a comment box so the participant can elaborate on the “other.”

6.   If you use rating scales, keep them consistent – for instance if your benchmark is a scale of 1 to 5 with “5” being high, make sure the survey uses the same scale throughout otherwise you will find you are getting skewed responses because the participant is confused.

7.   Preview the survey to test for errors.  I just launched a Marketing survey and after 3 people had taken the survey I noticed a typo in one of the questions.  The beauty of Zoomerang (the pro version) is that you can go in and modify a live survey.  The 4th person to take the survey mentioned that one of the questions was unclear and although I thought it was clear, after reading her suggestions, I made some modifications, another benefit to online surveys which cannot be done once a printed survey has been mailed.

8.   If you find you are not getting a good response to your surveys, send reminders.  People have good intentions and you may have sent it at a busy time.  A gentle reminder will show you if the survey is being responded to.

9.   Use an incentive to get people to respond.  In the marketing and networking surveys we sent, we used a “drawing for 3 books each week” through the end of the survey cycle of one month – an incentive we believe helped in achieving a good response rate.

10. You can promote the survey by sending a link to your email database, posting the link on your website and in your print materials (if they change frequently) and in your ezines and newsletters.  Zoomerang offers several ways to deploy the survey including uploading your email list to their server to send, giving you link to send to your email list and even using ZoomPro to fully customize and design the survey for you.

11. Partner with another company or professional to help promote the survey, increasing your chances of greater success which also give each of you the ability to use the results down the road.

12. Ask your customers to forward the survey to their own circle of influence.  It is amazing how many new customers you can acquire from this one little tactic.

13. Take a cue from the Fortune 500 companies- Gap and other stores are using sales slips to direct customers to their online surveys, by offering discounts for future purchases in exchange for their responses to their recent purchase. Technology is making it more affordable for companies to learn about their customers and how the company rates in the mind of those customers.

14. Collect contact information in the surveys, to help you compile and increase your database which then gives you the opportunity to continue to market to those same customers.

15. And finally, look for results that matter to you, to your company, to the bottom line, to the customer in particular. Jack Mackey, vice president of Service Management Group in Kansas City, Mo., a firm which conducts surveys for about 75 companies, says, “If you drive up the customer satisfaction to a high level, that’s where you get the loyalty effect.”

As an affiliate partner of Zoomerang, I invite you to take a look at all the options it offers. As featured on NBC News, Zoomerang — the industry’s most popular online survey tool — enables you to easily get fast answers to important questions.  There is a FR.EE version to test drive the tool and ZoomPro® which is what we use to deploy all our surveys.  If the above links don’t work, CLICK HERE.

Nic Windley said,

June 4, 2010 @ 2:36 am

Thanks for the post Heidi, I agree, surveys are a great way of finding out what your customers really need from you and I agree with your point 11;

11. Partner with another company or professional to help promote the survey, increasing your chances of greater success which also give each of you the ability to use the results down the road.

As customers often tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear and a 3rd party (consultant) can be nuetral territory that allows customers to open up and uncover hidden truths and opportunities.
Nic Windley´s last blog ..Coalition Approach To Sales And Marketing Addresses New Business Development Challenges

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