We all know that building and maintaining a customer base is the key to a successful business. While acquiring new customers is more difficult than maintaining existing ones, it is still crucial to keep existing customers while enticing new ones. Engaging with your customers via online surveys helps you do both.
Most salespeople believe they know what’s best for the customer (and depending on the industry and the sales cycle, they likely do!) because they are out there selling and serving. But it’s impossible for companies with large consumer customer bases to rely on a field sales force exclusively.
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The rise of social media has presented brands with another way to see and hear what customers are thinking – and this can be a positive or negative experience as we’ve seen people are not shy about sharing their opinions online.
The Happy Medium
Online surveys, especially those focused on customer satisfaction, are a great way to bring engagement to customers that are more scalable than 1-1 sales calls, and more structured than reactive social media. Simply asking the customer to rate the performance of a business is a great way to keep current customers satisfied, reduce customer churn and earn new customers. Surveying customers helps a company keep its fingers on the pulse of what customers value about the business, if their needs are being met, and where there might be opportunities for sales.
The Psychology Behind Surveys
Survey participants are often more loyal and committed to a company than non-participants. Why? Customers like being part of a community around the products, services and brands they love. Surveying customers make them feel like their opinion matters, and further deepen their connection to the brand.
Engaging with customers via surveys is also a great way for you to discover any problems with your product or services – before they become major issues. If you are hearing the same thing over and over, you can address it promptly. Not only can this even help avoid a social media rant, customers love to hear when their feedback results in changes to products for the better.
Build Awareness of Your Products or Services
Online surveys are both a means of data collection and information sharing. You’ll want to do this carefully because there are some laws about selling through research.
A good way to stay legal and transparent is to have a disclaimer on the survey. When surveying customers, simply inform customers that you will be telling them about new products and/or services while collecting their opinions, not only will they be understanding, you might actually find a level of enthusiasm there as well. This is a great way to get information about your business out to current and potential customers and showcase new products, services or other interesting features.
Surveying Customers Will Drive Opinions about You
When you ask people their opinion, you can sometimes cause them to think about something they otherwise may not have. Perhaps a potential customer didn’t realize they needed your product or service until you asked them what they thought about it.
You would be surprised at how many of your existing customers aren’t aware of all the different products and services you provide — and surveying customers just makes them aware in a very soft way without heavy selling.
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Uncover Areas for Improvement with Online Surveys
Online surveys are a great way to find out how well your company is performing. Are customers happy with current products and services? Are there things you could do to make their experience better? The survey may even point out problems you didn’t know existed.
Sharing results internally helps sharpen employee focus across the organization, from product development, to marketing and customer service. Knowing what the customer likes and dislikes – in their own words – can be critical in determining how to prioritize future developments.
In conclusion, surveys are great tools for obtaining critical information for your business and establishing a good relationship with customers. In today’s world of technology, it is easier than ever to put together and distribute surveys. Email, websites, and CRM tools are all options for getting surveys out fast. This makes it easy to keep up with customer opinions regularly.
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