The Power Of Customer Surveys
By Anna Johnson on August 5th, 2008Late last year we surveyed the readers of our Success Accelerator email newsletter. We generated enough responses to get a good idea of:
- How people read the newsletter;
- What they thought about its frequency, length, number of articles, etc;The topics they were, and were not, interested in;
- What improvements could be made; and
- Other fascinating and invaluable insights that enabled us to better tailor Success Accelerator to readers’ interests!
Now, we could have guessed what our readers wanted… but what a missed opportunity. There’s no way we could have known what our readers really thought and wanted. And, yes, the aim was to give them what they wanted… so they, in turn, would keep on reading the newsletter and, ideally, purchase some of the products and services we advertised in it.
Of course, surveys don’t always reveal the “truth”. What people actually do… and what they say they do… can be two different things. But if you word your surveys appropriately, don’t get too personal, and allow people to be anonymous, you can often glean incredible insights. Particularly, the “why” behind what they do.
If you get the chance – and if you don’t get the chance, make the chance – survey your customers. Find out what they want, like and dislike about your business, products or services… and then use the information to improve them!
(And yes, we plan to survey readers of this newsletter in the not-too-distant future too!)
