Marketing to your Customers: How well do you know them?

No doubt, when you first started your business or introduced a new product or service, you did extensive research to find out exactly what qualities your customers were looking for. You also probably did an analysis of the best ways to communicate and interact with your clients.

So how are you doing? Are you still meeting/ exceeding customer expectations? Are customers still pleased with your product or service? Are they repeat customers? Are they referring you to their friends, family, and co-workers? How do they feel about you?

These are all important questions to ask to help you measure the quality of the product or service that you provide. An easy way to find the answers to such questions is through a customer satisfaction survey. There are a couple of things to keep in mind when creating a customer satisfaction survey:
How you ask your customer questions.
When you ask your customer questions.
Which questions you ask your customer.

How you ask your customer questions:
Surveys can be conducted in a number of different ways. If you have face-to-face contact with your customer, you can ask after a meeting how they enjoy your product, service, and customer service. You can do phone interviews, mail out surveys, e-mail surveys, or send an invitation to your customers to take a survey. The most effective way to conduct a survey will depend on the type of product or service you provide your clients as well as the type of interaction you have with them.

When you ask your customer questions:
No matter how you conduct a customer satisfaction survey, timing is always crucial. The best time to ask a question about a customer’s experience with your company is when an interaction is fresh on their minds. You wouldn’t want to meet with a client and then two months later ask them if they are satisfied with your product. A time gap gives the customer a chance to either forget what they have experienced or get you confused with another company.

Which questions to ask your customer:
When deciding which questions to ask your customer, first think of the information that you would like to receive from them. The point of conducting a customer satisfaction survey is to find what aspects of your company or your product/ service need to change and what things you should keep on doing. Here are some basic questions to get you started:
How satisfied are you with the product or service you purchased?
How satisfied are you with the customer service you received?
How satisfied are you with the company overall?

Some other information that you might like to receive from the customer might be about how quickly you responded to phone calls, if communication was clear, and if service and support is readily available.

The Marion Group would be happy help you create a customer satisfaction survey! Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have regarding a customer satisfaction survey.