VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

Get Ready for the Holidays with a Survey to Your Customers

Wait, did I just say get ready for the holidays?? I know, it seems like school just got out and we should be at the beach! But we all should be thinking about the holiday season. Now is the time to start figuring out your holiday marketing plans to capitalize on this very important time of year.

So what can you do now? You can certainly send your customers an online survey to figure out what their buying habits might look like around the holidays. With the economy the way it has been it's going to be very different from previous years, so it might be a good idea if you understand what these differences will be.

Here's just a few ideas of survey questions you could ask broken out by if you market your products to a consumer (B2C) or a business (B2B).

What will your customers be looking to spend this holiday season?

B2C - Will they be buying "bargain" gifts under $5, $10, $15 or more? This gives you an idea of the types of products you should be offering.

B2B - Business gift buying starts pretty early so make sure you're ready. You may find that if you give your customers incentives to buy early, you'll have more people taking you up on a discount.

For both B2C & B2B - Consider asking your customers to rank best sellers from last year with a few new products you might want to sell this season. This will help you define what you need to be pushing in your email marketing campaigns.

What's it going to take to drag them across your finish line?

B2C - Since the last part of the year has customers focused from "buying for me" to "buying for you" your customers will be encouraged by many things to make them purchase. Find out which ones they want from you by having them rank things like discounts, free shipping, last minute shopping deals, early bird discounts and bundles & baskets.

When are they going to start holiday shopping: September, October, November, Last Minute?

B2C - Having an idea of when your customers will start the holiday shopping season certainly gives you an idea of how early you can start your "early bird specials". Plus it might even allow you to get to know in advance how much you'll need to be scrambling towards the last minute of the season.

B2B - All businesses buying products to keep their business running look for special end-of-year/end-of-quarter deals. Plus many of these businesses might lose budget if they don't spend it. You might want to ask them when they think they'll be making a purchase of a product or service you offer. Then follow up with them and make it happen.

How do your customers like their experience with your website?

B2C & B2B - You might want to put a survey link at the end of a purchase process or in the footer template of your website asking your customers how they liked their experience.  Were there too many clicks? Do they need live chat or click-to-call functionality built into your site? Was the purchase process to onerous? Making changes now, will get you ready for the holiday season.

When will they start planning their holiday functions?

B2B - If you're in the event, restaurant or hotel business, businesses are looking NOW to book their holiday parties so you'll need to find out what they're looking for in order to accommodate them. A survey to customers who've had events with you in the past asking if they'll be having another event is a great way to get them thinking about you first. You might include questions like "How many people would attend?" and what any specific needs would be for their event. This helps you in a follow-up call or email to them with specific ideas around what they want. Take the work out of it for them.

Finally, you'll need to look at your survey results and make some decisions on what you'll be offering this holiday season. I know it sounds early, but planning now will help make the upcoming holiday season more successful and hopefully less stressful! Check out VerticalResponse Surveys if you don't already have a provider.

How to Use a Rating Scale in an Online Survey

After you've spent some time finding out what specific information you might want from a customer when you present them with an online survey, you need to decide what type of answers will best suit your needs.

If you're trying to understand how people feel about the value of specific products or services that you provide, then rating scales can be a great way to measure your questions. 

There are a few types of rating scales to think about when you're designing your questions, a rating scale and an agreement scale. Both are known as Likert Scales after the inventor.

Rating Scale

A rating scale is designed so that you can ask your customers to rate your product or service. For instance a popular scale is a scale of 1-5, one representing "needs work" and five representing "very good" with the number 3 being "average". You can use radio buttons or pull down menus and give numerical choices as well as choices like Excellent, Good, OK, Fair, Poor.

Agreement Scale

In an agreement scale you can give your respondents a statement and ask them to indicate how closely their feelings match the statement on the scale. One indication of the scale can represent a feeling like "Strongly Disagree," and the higher end of the scale can represent something favorable like "Strongly Agree."

Rating scales can be great for any business if you want to find out how your customers or your visitors really feel about you. You can ask them to rate many things or even just one! You can also put an open-ended question right after the rating scale and ask them to comment. Then you'll get to the real scoop of why they felt a particular way.

One last note: If you have a few rating scales in a single survey make sure you keep them the same throughout your survey so as not to confuse your survey takers. Happy surveying and look to VerticalResponse for your survey needs!

How To Create a Great Online Survey

If you are intimidated to send a survey to your customers, STOP! Understanding what your customers like and don't like about your business can only make it better. Here is an easy-to-understand outline of how to begin your own survey.

What's the Purpose? Introduce your survey to your customers. Tell them why you’re sending it to them and what THEY will potentially gain from answering questions, whether it's better service or an incentive from you.

Public or Private? Deciding if you want your survey to be "controlled" can be important because you may just want your survey takers to be a specific subset of your customers. If you want input on something more broad like "how do you like our website?" then you might post the link to your survey out to anyone who visits you.

Make it Short and Sweet – Make sure you tell your recipients up front how long it will take them to take your survey. You're recipient's time is as valuable as yours. In addition, it's good practice to let them know where they are in the survey process (i.e. Page 1 of 5, etc.). This gives them a good idea of how long it will take and lets them know you think their time is valuable.

Ask Simple Questions – Ask short relevant questions. Write the questions clearly so there is no ambiguity. You want them to understand the questions, understand the answers and move on. Also, don’t guide your customers to tell you what you want to hear. For instance, I once flew Delta, and for every question the answers that were presented were "Excellent", "Good" and "Poor". For every question "Excellent" was pre-selected! Someone wanted job security.

Use the Correct Answer Types - It's important for you to present your answers clearly, but equally important is to give your recipients the proper vehicles to answer with.

If you have a list of answers where there can only be one correct answer: use a pull down menu or radio buttons.
    Example: What is your household income? How many times do you visit our store on a monthly basis?

If you want them to rank or rate something - Use radio buttons or pull down menu.
    Example: Rank our service on a scale of 1-5, 1 being "Needs Work" 5 being "Excellent".

If you want them to be able to give multiple answers: Use checkboxes
    Example: What did you like about our last event? Check all that apply.

Make it Flow – If you have questions that relate to each other, you’ll want to group them together. Don’t ask your customer in question 2 what kind of ice cream they like, question 3 what type of dog they have, then question 6 how many times do they eat ice cream per week. It doesn't flow and gets confusing.

Get a Second Opinion – If you’ve got other people in your company send them a test survey. It's great for them to act like the recipient, but they may think of a question you hadn’t thought of that would be important to know for your company.

Keep The Questions Closed – Try to think of any possible answer you can for each question you ask. Avoid too many “other” answers. It’s ok to have them in your survey but not for every question, it could get too difficult for you to analyze. They can be great for answers that you didn’t think of, especially for future surveys.  Also remember your recipient's valuable time; they may not have the time to write a lot, but they might have the time to check a box or to rank one of your answers.

Analyze Your Survey - Share Your Results - Act on what your recipients told you in your survey. Make changes to your product, website, service or company based on what your recipients said and don't forget to communicate these changes back to them. It will show that you're listening to them which goes a long way with customer loyalty.

Read 5 Places to Include a Survey Link for maximum results. Look at VerticalResponse Surveys.

What is a Radio Button and When Should You Use One?

Sending a survey to your customers can be a great way to learn more. But the way you ask a question can really be telling. What can be even more critical is the way you present your answers. Let’s talk about radio buttons and under what circumstances you would use them.

First of all a radio-button is that circular button where presented with a group of answers you can only choose one. If you choose another, the one that was originally chosen is switched to the new chosen answer. This is opposed to a checkbox answer where you’d want your recipient to "choose all that apply".

From the Wikipedia:

A radio button or option button is a type of graphical user interface element that allows the user to choose only one of a predefined set of options. They were named after the physical buttons used on older car radios to select preset stations - when one of the buttons was pressed, other buttons would pop out, leaving the pressed button the only button in the "pushed in" position.

So here are just a few examples when creating your surveys of what types of questions you would want to use radio-buttons.

• A person’s age range
• Household income
• Gender
• Last product purchased

If you know that your survey taker can only fit into one category, don’t offer checkboxes, your end results may get muddied.

Any tips about radio buttons? Bring it on!

Want to Hear From Your Customers? Create An Advisory Board!

If you’ve got a customer pool you can talk to, first of all, do one thing, consider yourself lucky. Sometimes we only think about how we communicate TO them, instead of asking them for their opinions. We’ve talked a bit about how to do that with surveys, but what about actually visiting them or meeting with them face-to-face to find out how they like your products or services?

Do you have a product or service that might warrant getting some of your best customers into your establishment and start a round table to get their ideas? You might be surprised at what ideas come up from other companies they like and patron.

At VerticalResponse we’ve got a great group of customers we tap into to find out how they use our product and what they like or like to see changed. We’ll be increasing the size and use of that customer group soon because we think it’s important to actually visualize how they use our service and talk to them about their challenges. Chances are our customers have figured something out that we couldn’t have possibly imagined and it might even be a useful idea for all of our customers.

Here's one way to start your CAB:

1. Send an email marketing campaign inviting your customers to your Customer Advisory Board. Use a VerticalResponse opt-in form for this select list. It will be a separate list in your account.

2. If you've got new ideas on the fly, send an email to them asking them about their opinions. They'll tell you when it's too much for them.

3. Invite them to meet face-to-face each quarter but be cognizant of their time.  A larger group is always better, more ideas come of it and if some can't make it you still have a meaningful discussion. If you can't do it at your business site, select a local restaurant or establishment. Either way make sure you offer refreshments, lunch or dinner, it's the polite thing to do and a very inexpensive focus group.

4. Come prepared with what you want to get out of the meeting, then be surprised at what you actually do get out of the meeting. If it's a new product line, show them the product line and ask for their feedback. If it's a partnership you want to do, talk to them about the features and benefits and ask them if this would benefit them.

5. Give a half hour at the end (or the beginning) for networking. People will leave when they have to, they shouldn't be rushed out of the door. Introduce your customers to some of your employees, customers always like to know who is behind the scenes.

6. Give a gift! If you have schwag give it up! Everyone likes something for free, and if it has your logo on it even better!

7. Thank your customers profusely!

Your customers are visiting many websites and many businesses each day. You could really learn from their experience. Create your own Customer Advisory Board and make it work for you.

Panzano - Great Customer Follow-Up

We were recently in Denver for our Get Vertical Email Marketing Workshop. Huge success, thanks to all who came. We went to dinner with our customer panelists at one of our customer's restaurant, Panzano. I highly recommend it by the way. I liked it so much I filled out one of those "How are we doing?" cards in the pocket of the bill holder. I wasn't sure if I'd get anything out of it because all too often you just don't.

To my surprise I got a really nice letter from the Executive Chef thanking me for my visit.

Lesson learned:

1. Ask your customers how you're doing - Be prepared for the good, the bad and the ugly. These guys did it with a nice piece of paper in the bill holder, you can also use VerticalResponse Surveys to do it as well.

2. Follow up - I got the letter just a week after I visited the restaurant. You can bet next time I'm in Denver I'll go again. You can also bet I'll tell people about it just like I'm doing now.

3. Incent your employees - Give your employees a spiff for getting information from your customers. Now Panzano has my information for them to email me.

It was a great experience all around visiting a customer and dining with them!

Do you do anything like this? Let's hear it!

5 Places To Include a Survey Link - Ask Your Customers How You're Treating Them!

Listening to your customers can always give you a reality-check. It's super-easy to listen to good news, but what happens when a customer gives you bad news? Acting on bad news might just be the best thing you can do to make your business better. And if you think you won't get any "suggestions for improvement" you're dead wrong, no matter how great business is going. Everyone has their own opinions. So be brave, and learn what these opinions are, by simply asking.

You may want to know:

• Why certain products aren't flying off the shelves (or even falling ever-so-slightly)
• How customers were treated by your personnel on the phones, in email or in person
• What customers might think about a new product line and how much they'd pay for it
• How customers feel about your online checkout process
• What products or services your customers would like to see from you next
• What customers thought about any changes or improvements to your site you've made after the fact OR
• What changes they'd like to see to your site before you do them!

All of this is easy and possible! How? Start with the new and easy-to-use VerticalResponse Survey product. You get 100 free responses and they're waiting for you right now in your account. Then what?

Email Them - You knew I was going to say that! This is especially great for online businesses but if you've got an offline business and you've collected email addresses from your customers it's equally as beneficial. If someone has just visited you for your product or services you might want to email them soon after to find out how their experience was. When I say "soon after" I mean it, you want to get the information while it's HOT!

Oh, if it's something you really want your recipients to focus on you should do it in a solo email and not include it in a newsletter with other links. It may distract your recipient from what you really want them to do.

Confirmation Emails - Include the link to a survey in all confirmation emails that you auto-generate after a customers buys your product online. It's a great opportunity for you to learn.

Transactional Emails - If you send "account update" emails or emails about an upcoming appointment, travel, restaurant reservation or hotel stay, you may want to include a survey link about your overall services.

Pop-Up Windows - When someone leaves a particular product page without purchasing or a landing page without signing up for something, pop up a window with the link to the survey asking for their opinions.

Your Site - You can include a link to "Tell Us How We're Doing" right on your home page or on every page of your site if you like. Make sure you look at this information regularly and act on it. Go ahead, make changes on-the-fly. Isn't the web beautiful?

After your customers have taken their valuable time to help you, why not send them a heart-felt thank you gift for filling out the survey like an e-gift certificate or a discount on their next purchase. It will go a long way in showing your customers that you genuinely care about what they think. Then put it to work!

How are you using surveys?

New Product: VerticalResponse Surveys!

We are super excited to announce that we just launched our new VerticalResponse Surveys! As easy as we've made it for you to create and send email marketing campaigns, we think we've done it again with Surveys.

We just think surveys are the perfect complement to go with your current email marketing program. It's like a good cheese with a great wine, or some great chocolate dunked in peanut butter. We must be hungry.

To get your started we're offering all of our users 100 free responses to your survey and we've got some really great tutorials.

Create Professional Surveys in Minutes!

Either choose from our 30 professionally designed surveys or start from scratch! We give you the tools you need to do either, right away.

Maximize Responses

You can use our survey product in a variety of ways. Post a link on your site and blog to your survey, link to it from your confirmation emails or even post it on your confirmation pages. Here's an idea...Email your survey to your recipients!

Analyze Results

Filter your responses down to the question or get an overall opinion, it's up to you. You get the ultimate reports in PDF or export to .csv for further analysis.

Take Action

Get an alert based on how someone answered a question. Then follow up with them to thank them for their opinions.

This is truly an amazing product. Check it out today in your VerticalResponse account. You'll have 100 free responses to get you started. Pricing info is found here.

We'd love to hear your comments about it, so chime in.

How Not to Do a Survey

I was on a Delta flight the other day (don't get me started on how bad it was, beginning to end) and decided to take the nifty touch screen survey on the screen on the back of the seat since it was the only part of the entertainment system that WAS working.

I thought it was going to be about customer satisfaction because at this point suffice it to say I was not satisfied. This has nothing to do with the slouched over guy with gross bare feet two rows up, nor the guy eating one of the enormous sandwiches you have to buy which from what I could tell had a small slab of roast beef with no less than an inch of mayo. And no it wasn't the fact that the seat in front of me was reclined so far into my lap that I couldn't open my laptop...nope that wasn't it at all.

So I get to the survey and each question is rated on a scale, 5 points down to 1 from Excellent, Very Good, Good, Poor to Very Poor. Each question had it's own screen. Fine so far.

Here's where it gets bad:

1. Each question had PRE-SELECTED "Excellent"! Worse than that it was so subtle that you were onto the next new question after you hit "continue" that you just keep pressing continue (or Excellent) until you're done with the survey! I ask you, what's the point?
2. Then they asked about the condition, functionality, and cleanliness of my tray table, my seat cover, the floor around me, my window, my seat pocket, the carpet, my seat cover (and it's decorative trim) and the functionality of my seat. (Nowhere could I tell them about the fact I couldn't open my laptop)
3. There were no open ended questions - They even have a keyboard on another part of the survey.

What about the entertainment system, many times the only thing that gets one through a flight (and the fact that it wasn't working), or the quality of the mayonnaise sandwiches with a side of roast beef slice? What about the food service you pay for where they ran out of most food by aisle 34 and there were 44 aisles on the plane? What about the disposition of the flight attendants, which I actually would have rated them high on with hell breaking loose?

If they wanted to know how to redecorate the plane, they should have started off the survey with "Flight Redecoration Survey". If you're going to do a customer satisfaction survey, especially in the middle of an experience, make sure you ask the tough questions. Knowing the answers will only make your business better.