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what is the best way to design a customer survey?
Question:
>We discovered that giving a bonus or gift makes the response >less representative.
What if you’re dealing with a relatively low cost (under $50) consumer item for which there’s not a lot of "relationship" between the customer and the company? Would your opinion of a bonus/gift offer altering the response still hold? What if your primary aim is to determine demographics/psychographics (requiring "personal" questions) rather than just product satisfaction feedback? Another thing that I’m curious about, but have never tested, is whether it’s better to enclose a survey in with the product or mail it separately a week or so later? vrurbach (at) optran.com OOOOO OOOOO OOOOOO OOOOO OOO OO OO Victor R. Urbach OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OOO OO Optran Corporation OO OO OOOOO OO OOOO OOOOOOO OO OO OO Direct Response Marketing OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OOO http://www.optran.com OOOOO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
Response:
>Another thing that I’m curious about, but have never tested, is >whether it’s better to enclose a survey in with the product or mail it >separately a week or so later?
I’ve always found that a phone call or letter a week later works best. While more and more companies are shifting to a "customer-service oriented" approach, this is still not mainstream for many industries. By contacting them a week later, you are taking another step towards building a long-term relationship and customer loyalty. I am still suprised a bit when a company follows up with me after service, but when they do, the odds go up dramatically that I will become a regular, referal giving customer. My $.02. Michael A. Wineke | President, Internet Marketing Solutions We GUARANTEE results for our clients. High-end design, online marketing & public relations, and the technical saavy to back it up.
Response:
Does anyone have any advice on customer surveys? I am a marketing assistant for a service company and feel that a lot can be learned from our customers. Is there a certain amount of surveys I should send out and do I need to include a bonus or a gift in order to get a response? Any info would be appreciated.
Response:
The most important thing is the questionnaire design. Each potential question should be followed with this mental question, "So what?" That is, how will the answer to the question benefit your decision making? If you get answers to questions that can’t lead you to make informed business decisions, "So what?" If you already have a good relationship with your customers, you probably don’t NEED to provide any sort of premium. Plus, a premium could cause the customer to feel obligated to choose "nice" over "honest" when filling out the questionnaire. If you explain to your customers the reason for the survey is to improve the service/product you provide, your customers will not need a premium, the improved service/product will be reward enough. Besides, who doesn’t like being ask their opinion? As for sample size, that depends a lot on your customer base. When I worked for a national consumer magazine which had 1,000,000 subscribers, we mailed 2,000 questionnaires and received over 1,200 responses. That was excellent, considering the questionnaire took about two hours to complete. If you have 10,000 customers, a sample of 200 customers randomly selected and providing 100 responses should work for you. The danger in this area is in basing too important decisions on too few responses, or in improperly selecting your sample audience. I would be happy to discuss this in more detail via email if you are interested. You are moving in the right direction because so many businesses fail to actually listen to their customers. Strengthening your bottom line, Larry Brown The Profit Center Consulting & P-I-P Management Services for Direct Marketers "All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty." (Proverbs 14:23)
Response:
>Does anyone have any advice on customer surveys? I am a marketing >assistant for a service company and feel that a lot can be learned from >our customers. Is there a certain amount of surveys I should send out and >do I need to include a bonus or a gift in order to get a response? Any >info would be appreciated.
To answer your questions briefly, "Yes," the liklihood of response is greatly increased with the addition of a "bonus or gift" in a customer response. Indicate that the "gift" will be sent when the response is received. The gift does not need to necessarily be tangible, it can be a % discount on next order, etc. In terms of the number of surveys you should send, I would recommend that you initially sample a number from your existing database of customers. You can see if you are receiving a response from them, and if not, you can adjust your survey to receive more response. In other words, think of this survey as a direct mail program you would be running. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket, rather, test, test, test. You might try different versions of your questionnaire, or different "prizes or bonuses" to see which results in greater response. One important thing to remember when designing your survey – try to give the impression that your customers will receive "value" by filling out the survey. This does not mean in the gift or bonus, but will they learn something by answering the proposed questions. I have recently added a "survey" element to my web page. If you would like to see an example of what I mean, by all means look at the survey. In the survey, a respondent has the opportunity to learn a few things in the responses to the questions. They might see something that sparks a question which will cause them to look it up and research it if they don’t currently know about it. My web page address follows in my signature. I hope this helps. Sincerely, — Tom Smigielski Marketing Consultant Enhanced Images, Inc. http://www.icubed.com/webrealm/ei/ (508) 641-4918
Response:
>Does anyone have any advice on customer surveys? I am a marketing >assistant for a service company and feel that a lot can be learned from >our customers. Is there a certain amount of surveys I should send out and >do I need to include a bonus or a gift in order to get a response? Any >info would be appreciated.
As I work with an advertising and web development agency, I would also appreciate any suggestions concerning this poster’s question. In addition, could anyone suggest online samples of client satisfaction surveys or questionnaires? Thank you in advance for any information. Andrea Andrea Frassoni http://www.intersphere.com/
Response:
I guess my advice would be to seek a professional. You might also want to try finding books like the "Marketing Scales Handbook" (There is a first and second volume, each containing different scales.) Scales are used for determining how to word a survey question and what sort of answers to allow (obviously, this does not apply to open ended questions) You might want to stop by the American Marketing Association website (http://www.ama.org) and do a search. We have 5 year indexes for all of our journals and magazines as well as listings of compiled bibliographies for different topics. Not all of the actual content is available to nonmembers though. I guess the real question is, "how accurate do you need the results?" A final parting thought: You might want to contact other companies to see if you can take a look at any surveys they might have done. If they don’t percieve you as a competitor……. Director of Electronic Communications American Marketing Association http://www.ama.org – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – >Does anyone have any advice on customer surveys? I am a marketing >assistant for a service company and feel that a lot can be learned from >our customers. Is there a certain amount of surveys I should send out and >do I need to include a bonus or a gift in order to get a response? Any >info would be appreciated.
Response:
> Does anyone have any advice on customer surveys? I am a marketing > assistant for a service company and feel that a lot can be learned from > our customers. Is there a certain amount of surveys I should send out and > do I need to include a bonus or a gift in order to get a response? Any > info would be appreciated.
Larry Brown has given you a good start on the sample size issue. To expand on his comments about "So what": the only reason to survey your customers is if you have a marketing issue that their answers could help you resolve. All research should start with What is the question/What decision do we need to make. If you keep this objective clearly in mind, the questionnaire questions won’t wonder off track. Incidently, I much prefer the term "survey" to describe the process of collecting information from a population. The thing you send/questions you ask is the "questionnaire." Incentives are generally not needed in a customer survey, so long as you get a reasonable return rate. What is reasonable? There is no magic cutoff point. Higher is better. If you get a 10% return rate you run considerable risk the 90% who did not respond are different from the 10% who did. (Only the little old ladies with time on there hands responded?) As a general guideline, for mail surveys, we like to have return rates in the 25% plus range. Our firm does exclusively surveys for our clients. If you have more questions feel free to e-mail me directly. — * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * John W. Taylor Taylor Consulting Group === YOUR MARKET RESEARCH PARTNER === 805-595-9427 (voice) 805-595-9428 (FAX) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Response:
You already got some very good advices. I’ll just ad part of my own experience. We discovered that giving a bonus or gift makes the response less representative. Not everybody is equally motivated by these kind of ‘offers’. If your company delivers services which are important to your clients or take a lot of their cooperation you probably won’t need a gift. The amount of surveys you should send out depends on the sample you need and the motivation of your customers to respond. I would recommend to try to get at least 100 or 150 responses of every (sub)group of customers you want to analyse. So if you want to look at 3 branches you need 300 – 450 filled surveys. The percentage of response on a survey that is send to business adresses is in our experience usually between 10 and 25%. A survey by telephone gives a better response and is also more representative. It seems that satisfied customers are more motivated to fill in a written survey than dissatisfied customers. I don’t know whether in the USA interviews by telephone are usual. In Holland it is quite common. In consumermarketing we just call at a time that probably is convenient. In business to business we make an appointment for the interview at a time that suits the client. If you want to know more about this method, I will be pleased to answer your questions. I can’t tell you what the best way is to formulate your questions, since I don’t know what you want to find out. If you want to know whether or not your customers are satisfied with your services, there are some methods for servicefirms which give results everybody can interprete the right way. They also result in good guidelines for qualityprograms. If you want to know more, please let me know. Marjolein Visser – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Does anyone have any advice on customer surveys? I am a marketing > assistant for a service company and feel that a lot can be learned from > our customers. Is there a certain amount of surveys I should send out and > do I need to include a bonus or a gift in order to get a response? Any > info would be appreciated.