Every B2B company wants to know more about its customers. So why not ask them? Surveys are inexpensive ways to keep tabs on what they want and where you’re hitting and missing the mark. Here are five reasons you should survey your customers right now:
- Improve the customer experience.
Satisfied customers come back, speak your praises and send referrals. Take every opportunity to learn what makes them happy at every step in the customer journey.
- Improve your product or service.
Understanding what customers love (and don’t) about your product or service will give you valuable insights about how to improve.
- Build a relationship.
As with any relationship, your customers want to feel cared for and valued. Listen carefully when they tell you what they want.
- Learn about trends.
Customers may tell you they wish you did something or stocked something that they’ve seen or experienced elsewhere – intelligence that could help you stay on top of the latest trends in your market.
- Learn how your employees are doing. Following up on specific customer interactions can help you learn who’s doing great and who needs to brush up on their service skills.
Ready to get started? Here are five easy tips for doing surveys right:
- Keep it short.
People are busy; don’t waste their time.
- Ask only what you need to know.
Don’t risk a lower response rate over something that won’t elicit valuable results.
- Start simple.
Well-crafted open-ended questions can generate some of your most useful feedback; use them sparingly and strategically. But get them comfortable with some easy questions first.
- Don’t ask leading questions.
Choose your words carefully to avoid introducing bias that leads respondents to answer in a particular way. Simple sentences with a minimum of flowery adjectives are typically best.
- Thank them.
Even if you don’t offer an incentive – there are pros and cons, according to SurveyMonkey – be sure to end with a “thank you” page that expresses your appreciation for their time.
Now that you’re duly inspired, you might want to dig into our December post about how you can leverage industry data you discover through surveys. If you want to learn more or need help conducting a customer survey and using the data to support a robust content marketing program, we can help.
Be sure to share your questions and experiences with customer surveys in the comments section below!
Holly Celeste Fisk is a Client Services Manager at Content4Demand. Known as our clients’ “best friend,” Fisk facilitates meetings and research, and contributes to content and strategy recommendations. She also leads content-creation teams from concept to final design and production, and helps clients plan and implement content assets. During her day-to-day at C4D, Holly loves diving into consulting projects, such as personas, content audits and gap analyses, and sharing deep, actionable data with clients. In her spare time, she enjoys softball, literary fiction, comedy, “Top Chef” and of course, her adorable niece and nephew. Follow her on Twitter at @HollyCFisk.
