Customer Surveys
All businesses need to know who their customers are and what they are thinking.
Many small businesses don’t have this information because they haven’t learned the market research techniques that can be effective. One such technique is the written survey.
Like any other form of market research it is simpler than you think. You just have to ask your customers in an organized way.
Surveys need to be short, easy to fill out, anonymous, and must be understood by the respondent. The following is a straight forward survey that I have used successfully many times.
First, try to make your survey one page long. People can then see that it won’t be too time consuming to complete. Tell them why you are conducting the survey (to learn more about your customers) and that their opinion is important. State that you are a local small business-people like small businesses.
Next I like to have two “open-ended questions. These allow the respondents to tell you, in their own words, just what they are thinking. The first one is “What do you like most about Kitsap Kites?” You want to know what you are doing well so that you can keep doing it. Also you almost always get some surprises about what customers like. This helps you learn why people are buying your goods or services. Next ask “What do you think most needs improvement at Kitsap Kites? Here is where you learn the areas that you need to do better. Remember these customers are buying your offerings in spite of these items. These might be the reasons others are not buying. Both questions allow the respondent to tell you exactly what is on their mind before you have prompted them with other questions.
After this, I recommend a series of topics that you would like to have rated by your customers. This could be such things as quality, delivery, price, courteousness, selection, durability,-any of the many things about your products or business. Have them rate each topic from 0 (very bad) to 10 (very good). Be clear on your rating scale system. You can average the results (say 6.9 for price or 4.3 for delivery) and in this way obtain a quantitative measure of each topic. From this you can compare topics or compare ratings of a given topic over time. Maybe your delivery was 4.8 last September but you made some changes. You surveyed again recently and now the rating was 7.7. Your changes were effective.
A fourth question that is a must is “Where did you hear of us?” This allows you to measure the effectiveness of your advertising or other marketing efforts. Maybe it’s mostly word of mouth so a referral program would be best. If no one “heard of your” because of your advertising, it’s wasted.
Finally you need to collect demographic data on your customer (remember to reinforce that the survey is anonymous). Data such as age, sex, marital status, household income (not personal income), number of working adults, number of children, and how often you buy from us are all good data to have. This allows to target your marketing and know your customers.
Have a way for them to fill it out easily either at your store and quickly turn it in, or with a stamped, self addressed envelope for return. If you mail it out expect response rate to be low-10% could be good.
Try this survey. You and your business need to know what your customers are thinking.
This article was written by Seattle SCORE Chapter member Fred Parkinson for the Kitsap Sun in Bremerton.