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  Category: Articles » Business » Marketing & Promotion » Article
 

The Importance of Customer Surveys




By Dr. Jan Stringer, Ph.D.

When it comes to learning about a company's client base, there is rarely anything more effective than a

customer satisfaction survey. For decades, these surveys have given customers a chance to voice their

concerns and sing the praises of the industries with which they deal. Very few argue against the efficacy of

these mini-quizzes, acknowledging the surveys as a landmark tool toward open communication with the consumer.

What has come into question, however, is the best way to get solid responses to the quizzes and questions

put forth.

The most commonly used methods of surveying clients involve contacting the customer via letter, phone, or

e-mail. Other methods that are used – at a considerably larger expense – include face-to-face interviews and

focus groups. Each of these methods has advantages and disadvantages that deserve discussion before

embarking on a program of customer evaluation.

Focus groups and face-to-face interviews can be incredibly cost-prohibitive, not to mention the amount of

time necessary to gather the information from those surveyed.

Phone surveys offer the advantages

of face-to-face interviews and focus groups without the added cost of sending those doing the surveying out

to the premises. It is not, however, the most cost-effective method available, and it doesn't gather any

more responses than face-to-face interviewing.

Mailing surveys out in letter formats, or handing them to customers as they leave the premises, offers a

myriad of advantages over the more time-consuming face-to-face and phone surveys. One of the chief benefits

to paper surveys is allowing those being surveyed the chance to think about their answers in their own time.

In direct contrast to the earlier methods, paper surveys allow for vast numbers of surveys to be sent out at

once, and though the percentage of those surveys coming back may be smaller than in face-to-face interviews,

because of the large number going out, the actual responses coming back in can be significantly higher.

In other words, verbal interviews can be completed at a rate of a few dozen per day, which pales in

comparison to the thousands of surveys that can be sent out every day in the mail. If only 5% respond out of

10,000 sent out, that's 500 returned per day! When looking for large numbers, there is no question as to

which method mentioned so far works best. However, when looking for a large volume of surveys being sent out

with a much higher response rate, e-mail takes the cake.

Sending e-mails to customers is the quickest, most successful method of gaining insight into what the client

wants. It's also the least intrusive, something many people appreciate. A quick scan over the survey, a few

typed responses, and a click of a button sends the survey back from whence it came. Viola! No fuss, no

mess. The response times and percentages outstrip any other form of surveying available, and customers

appreciate the ease and convenience.

Knowing what the customer wants is a necessity of business. Getting that information is required in order to

fully anticipate where a business should focus its energy. With so many options available, it makes sense to

know which methods will give you the best results.
 
 
About the Author
Dr. Jan Stringer has over 20 years of experience in survey design and implementation. She has authored numerous articles and publications about surveys, training, and employee and customer satisfaction. Click here to view a free Web-based Customer Survey Demo.

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  Some other articles by Dr. Jan Stringer, Ph.D.
The Secret to Keeping Employees Committed
Recently, we hear of companies laying-off employees at the mere anticipation of a market slow-down. Conversely, many employees have become so aggressive in promoting their careers that they "hop" from one ...

How to Keep Employees and Customers Satisfied And Improve your Bottomline
Conventional wisdom points toward customer satisfaction surveys as the best way to pinpoint what specifically draws the customer back or pushes them ...

Why Deploy Employee Surveys?
From postcards on the table at your favorite restaurant to letters after a brief hospital stay tucked in with your ...

Survey Root Cause Analyses
The sole purpose of the root cause analyses is to identify the smallest number of issues that can be shown to drive, control, or predict the largest number ...

Communicating to Employees
Like most organizations in this tough economy, yours is one with challenging issues that aren't going to go away on their own. You're going to have to take ...

Employee Performance, How To Increase
In any labor market, companies compete to find and keep the best employees, using pay, benefits, promotions, and training. But these well-intentioned efforts often miss the mark. The front-line manager is the key ...

  
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