Customer Satisfaction Surveys to Strengthen Your Marketing Efforts

One of the smartest marketing moves any company can make is to conduct a customer survey. Whether they are customer satisfaction surveys or means to understand who potential customers are, customer surveys are a minefield of information. Any company that needs to promote its products and/or services or shop that wants to increase its sales can benefit from customer surveys. Since marketing as opposed to selling hinges on an understanding of customer needs and wants, customer satisfaction surveys go a long way in telling a company how well it is on track with its agenda or whether a degree of redirection is required.

To begin at the beginning, ask yourself just why you have decided to conduct a customer survey? At which stage of the product life cycle is the product that you need to find out more about? Is it a new product about to be launched or is it an old product which has been re-launched with improved features? If the product is already doing well, a customer satisfaction survey would enable you to find out whether it is at risk from some angle. These threats could be in the nature of pricing or packaging issues. People might be happy with the product per se, but would prefer to see certain modifications in it in the near future.

If the product has been doing well but has plateaued, or worse has started sliding, then you definitely need to conduct a customer satisfaction survey to find out why. Remember that the best time to conduct customer satisfaction surveys is immediately after the purchase while the experience is still fresh in the mind. This would enable you to gauge whether you can expect a repeat purchase. Also, the single most important grievance that many customers have about a product is after-sales-service. A customer survey should try and find out how a customer feels about the frequency or even need for after-sales service.

Remember: A single satisfied customer brings in ten others, but one dissatisfied customer would discourage a 100 other customers.

Hone Your Marketing Strategy with Consumer Satisfaction Surveys

When any company decides to conduct a customer survey, it takes a marketing decision which has the potential of changing the way the company does business. In particular customer satisfaction surveys go a long way in telling you what the customer really thinks about your product/services. However, the two kinds of surveys should not be confused since their scope and purpose are entirely different.

A customer survey might be conducted to define a customer profile with greater clarity. This means that the survey would try and identify the geographic, demographic, economic and social profile of the existing and potential customer. When a customer survey seeks to identify the average age/sex/race/educational level of the customer, then the customer profile is only partial. A comprehensive profile would take into account professional profiles; average family income to determine purchasing power; leisure activities; reading habits etc to analyze the marketing pitch that will convince the target to invest in a specific product/product range/service. Depending on what you want to promote, the marketing pitch will hinge on the aspiration levels of the target audience or on play on the hidden fears.

On the other hand customer satisfaction surveys help you get to the heart of this critical relationship between marketer and buyer in ways that help you move your business forward. The satisfaction, loyalty, and reference-ability of your customers directly affect growth and profitability. So customer satisfaction surveys help you assess the desires, needs and wants of your valued customers. They tell you whether or not your customer wants to repeat the purchase experience. This is especially relevant for those dealing in customer goods.

Timing is a critical factor when conducting customer satisfaction surveys as a delayed survey might yield inaccurate results for a variety of reasons. The details of the experience may have been forgotten or else may be confused with a later or earlier experience. So whether you intend to conduct a customer survey or customer satisfaction surveys, strike while the iron is hot.