Our latest Blog

Customer satisfaction surveys are more popular among big box retailers, but there’s no reason why smaller businesses can’t use them. They are a great way to collect valuable data on the people who keep your business alive. The feedback also sheds light on areas where you’re falling short, such as delivery options or product selection.

If you’re in need of a simple, cost-effective way to learn about your customers, you’ll find the answers you’re looking for with customer satisfaction surveys. Below are the key benefits to using these surveys and tips for getting started.

Gather Valuable Data

There are probably things that you don’t know or take for granted. But, if you did know what they were, you could adjust things on your end and create a better product and shopping experience.

Customer surveys allow you to take a step back and get an honest, objective opinion of your business. What are you doing right? What areas do you need to improve on? Look for trends among your customers’ responses. If you notice that many people bring up the same things, it’s probably an issue.

Give Customers a Voice

You probably have a lot of ways that you communicate with customers – blog content, newsletters, email blasts – but this content doesn’t invite two-way conversation like a survey does. With a satisfaction survey, you are giving customers a voice.

To show customers that you care about what they have to say, implement some of their feedback. You can update them with the new changes by saying something like, “Thanks to your feedback, we’ve now decided to…” This shows that you read the comments and applied them to your business.

Improve Customer Retention

Existing customers are everything. This is why the first rule of business is to retain customers and build loyal relationships with them.

Consider that new customers cost five times more to attract than existing customers. Only 5-20 percent of new customers make a purchase, compared to 60-70 percent of current ones. Plus, existing customers are willing to spend 31 percent more than new customers.

It’s clear that your current customers are the ones to bring you more business, so make sure their opinions are heard. To get more participation, you can offer a reward for participating in the survey, such as a discount code or entry into a drawing.

Of course, acquiring new customers is still an important part of running a business. The good news is that all of the feedback you collect from your customer satisfaction surveys can be applied to new customers as well.

Evolve as a Brand

Gathering data is an excellent way to take your brand to the next level. You’ll be armed with new information about your customers and what types of things they want to see in your business. By applying this feedback, you can create a stronger brand with more loyal customers.

Also, if you conduct a number of surveys over a period of time, you can measure the results. What improvements have you seen? Are you making progress? Ask the same questions and compare answers – you should see that the feedback is more positive than it was months ago. If it’s not, you still have more work to do.

5 Steps to Creating Effective Customer Surveys

If you’re ready to create a customer satisfaction survey of your own, you’ll need to plan your survey. What questions do you want to ask? Will you offer an incentive? Follow these five steps for the best results.

1 – Define your goals. What do you want your customer survey to accomplish? Do you want to improve a particular product or service? Are you concerned your website isn’t cutting it? List out a few things you want to learn from the survey.

2 – Select a tool. There are a number of online tools (SurveyMonkey, Typeform) that can help you create a survey and share it with your customers. These tools also allow you to target certain people for more insightful results.

3 – Draft your questions. Include no more than 5-10 questions in your survey. Consumers have short attention spans, so you don’t want to bombard them with too many requests. Also, leave room for customers to expand on their thoughts. Yes-no questionnaires don’t offer much insight.

4 – Offer an incentive. An incentive is an easy way to encourage more people to fill out your survey. While you’re planning your questions, think about an incentive you can offer, such as a discount or downloadable white paper. Incentives boost both participation and completion rates.

5 – Review and send. Review your survey and all other content – CTA, subject line, links, etc. When you’re happy with your survey, send it out to your segmented list. Most online survey tools allow you to send reminder emails to those who don’t respond.

Once you’ve collected the data, you can analyze it and use it to make more informed decisions for your business. You can even use some of the feedback as inspiration for blog posts – it’s another way to show customers that you are listening.

If you are looking to start a market research project and gain valuable insight on your client base, contact Yakima Branding at 509-901-9735 or fill out our short contact form and we’ll get back to you.