Surveying your customers opinions, needs and desires is a great way to enhance your relationship with your customer and, at the same time, glean some key information that will help your business to grow and prosper.
Customer surveys should be an important part of your small business Internet marketing plan.
Surveys take many shapes and forms.
They can be as simple as a small printed card that is delivered to each customer along with their receipt - in the case of a restaurant or other retail type business.
In a professional office setting, like a doctor or attorney or realtor, this may mean a comprehensive questionnaire regarding the services that were rendered.
It is not difficult to design a customer survey that will open a dialogue with your prospects and customers.
There are many templates available online to assist you in that regard.
You may also engage a telephone survey service to accomplish your survey for you at their 1-800 number.
This is relatively inexpensive to do, but it lacks the capability of garnering the customer's email address in the process.
That should always be a goal.
One of the more efficient ways to accomplish this is use one of the many online survey tools.
You simply provide your customer with the link and they can go there at their leisure and quickly respond to your survey.
The survey results, then, are automatically tabulated for you! Many people will not participate in a survey unless there is something in it for them.
Some companies use a contest or an 'ethical bribe' to tempt customers into answering a survey.
For example, Taco Bell seems to always have a $1,000 drawing and you can be entered "by simply calling in to complete the 2 minute survey!" Other restaurants will offer you a coupon good for a free desert or a discount on your next visit.
Of course, such an offer, with an expiration date, has the added effect of getting them back into the restaurant again soon.
Collecting email addresses for your small business email marketing program should always be in the back of your mind.
For this reason, you should try to give the customer a form or card or receipt that begs them to visit your online site for a quick survey and, once you get them there, be sure to ask them to join your newsletter or tips email list.
In addition to helping you build your email list, creating customer surveys really helps you to learn what your customers expect and, since they are familiar with your business form a customer's viewpoint, they can give you a little different insight to your store.
This can be very important to your operation and to your future and can really help you to head off developing problems in the bud.
From a customer relationship point of view, doing good customer surveys periodically will really let the customer know that you care about their opinion and they will feel 'a little more close' to you and your business.
These are the kind of people who tell their friends! In assembling your small business Internet marketing plan, be sure to make customer surveys an important component.
You should not do such surveys to the same customer too often; perhaps once per quarter would be a good target.
Be sure to think of ways to use the surveys to collect information on your customer's demographic information as well as their email address.
All of these tools will help you complete your small business Internet marketing plan!