- Home
- » Learning Center
- » Hints & Tips
- » Learn Your Lessons Well
Learn Your Lessons Well
Even the best survey is meaningless if you do nothing with the results
Conducting an online survey is a good chance to take a 50- or 100-foot view of your organization and get a fresh perspective on what you're doing to see if your customers feel the same way that you hope they do. It allows you to learn things about your organization that you might not see on a day-to-day basis.
But a survey isn't a valuable marketing tool just because you ask a lot of good questions. Even the most comprehensive survey can be a waste of time if you don't learn something from the results and act on them.
One nice thing about conducting an online survey -- as opposed to using comment cards or relying on informal face-to-face conversations with customers -- is that you can more easily analyze the information you receive. And thankfully, you don't need to be a statistician or high-level researcher to make sense of the data.
Take a Good Look
The most important step in learning from your survey is having a clear focus and objective in mind before you begin the process. No matter what the specifics are, you're conducting your survey likely because you're thinking about making changes to your business or fine-tuning your marketing efforts. Ask questions that match that intention, and that you can learn from.
After the survey is completed, start the analysis process by looking at your results overall to discover larger trends. One way to do this is to ask for demographic information, such as gender, age, or location. Then you can see commonalities, such as if men responded in a way that was different from women. Or perhaps age plays a role in who is a more frequent customer or who is more engaged with your organization.
The next step is to take a deeper dive and look at the results question-by-question. You'll be able to gain additional flavor because you'll know how individual customers feel about specific products, topics, and issues of concern.
Be sure to look beyond the actual answers for additional information. You may notice "hidden" trends that you did not ask about specifically. For example, if you manage a nonprofit organization and you do a fundraising survey, people may respond that they have a positive impression of what you do but aren't able to donate money right now. That would give you insight that they would likely support you in other ways. Maybe these people would like to donate time or services instead?
Call to Action
Remember that learning from your survey is not necessarily only about what you see in the results. It's also about acting on them. This is critical for two reasons: One, you need to demonstrate to the people who took your survey that you were listening to them and that it wasn't a waste of their time. And two, because now you have some really valuable insights to keep your business strong and competitive.
For example, if customers are telling you that your hours of operation don't meet their needs, then pick a night where you stay open later. If they find that your support personnel aren't helpful enough, think about adding additional training or re-evaluating your staff.
Of course, don't just take what your customers tell you and ignore your own business knowledge. If you carry a certain product, but your customers want some complimentary products, don't necessarily go out and stock your shelves with all of them. Instead, pick one or two additional products, try them out, and see how well they sell.
Most importantly, if you're going to act, do it in a timely manner. If you conduct the survey and then wait six months before you make any changes, people's focuses or opinions may have changed, and other things may be more pressing to them. The longer you wait, the greater the chances are that any changes you make will not match how customers are actually feeling.
Regardless of what kind of survey you're doing or what you learn, a survey shouldn't be a one-time-only deal. Gaining customer feedback should be an ongoing investment so you can see if changes you're making have been effective. Survey your customers regularly and you'll keep on learning valuable lessons from them.
