WFIM Blog: Posts about Marketing.

The phrase “know your customer” is more important than ever during tough economic times.  Online surveys are an easy and cost effective way to gather information to better understand your customers and their needs.

Here are some tips to help write a more effective survey…

• One problem = one survey.  To define the objective of your survey, as yourself “What’s the most important thing I need to learn now to grow my business?”
• Make good survey questions.  Ask yourself “Will the answer to this question help me solve this problem?”  If not, save the question for another survey.
• Know what type of question you’re asking.  Is it open-ended or closed-ended?  Open-ended uses a blank text box where customers can write in more detail.  However, it takes more time for your customers and for you to analyze.  Closed-ended uses choices for the customer to respond to making it quicker and easier to spot trends.  Adding a comments box to a closed-ended question gives you the best of both.
• Remember don’t use “and,” one topic per question.
• Avoid leading questions.  Refrain from using words like “never” or “always” and ask questions in a neutral way.  Instead of “Don’t you think…” ask “Rate the effectiveness…” and provide a scale.

How well do you know your customers?  More so than ever, customers are selective in where they spend their money.  Writing effective surveys can help you learn what’s most important to your customers so you can give them what they need to keep coming back to you, and not the guy down the block.