Business owners of small businesses can consult their sales team and watch their sales figures to monitor if business is improving or declining, to determine if their marketing and advertising methods are working, and to observe which products are selling, the rate at which they are sold, and how frequently customers purchase these products. Customer perception and consumer behaviors are just as important as sales and profits. For this reason, business owners should prioritize the customer’s wants, needs, and opinions.
To gauge customers’ perception and satisfaction, business owners should design customer satisfaction surveys for customers and consumers to participate in and provide feedback on the products and services they purchased.
Customer satisfaction surveys are a cost-effective way to collect information about customers. Conducting a survey online using an online survey making platform, such as SurveyKing, is an inexpensive, convenient way to reach many customers at once. The answers customers provide to survey questions can give business owners insight into customer behaviors, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, as well as provide customer demographics, giving business owners a better idea of who is purchasing their goods and services.
Improvement of How Products Are Made
Businesses can use customers’ responses to online surveys to their advantage. Insights into how customers and consumers feel about a company and the products it makes can be used to improve the way products are manufactured. Businesses can increase the manufacturing of products that customers find useful, and these products can be designed according to what customers like. Well-received features can be included in products, and poorly received features can be excluded.
Improvement of Marketing Tactics
The responses that customers provide in customer satisfaction surveys can be used to create marketing content that is more targeted to customers. Targeted, personalized content that is made specifically for the customer with their interests in mind may make a good impression on customers and have a positive impact on their decision to make purchases. Targeting marketing content demonstrates to the customer that the company understands them and the factors that influence their decisions to purchase products.
Business owners should be mindful that every customer goes through a different process when deciding whether or not to buy something. Some customers are more sure than others about what they want to buy and how much money they want to spend, while others are not so sure. If customers are asked questions about what motivates them to make purchases or questions about the likelihood of them making a purchase directly from an ad, business owners could use that information to improve ads to encourage unsure customers to make purchases. Businesses should create marketing content that makes customers more aware of the company and the products it produces, makes them compare and view a company more positively than its competitors, and encourages them to buy products.
Customer satisfaction surveys can ask customers questions about where they learned about the company or one of its products and where they first saw it advertised. Some customers may see products advertised on social media sites, considering social media use is so widespread. In the United States, Facebook is used by adults in different age groups, with 69 percent of adults reporting using this site, and 73 percent of adults report using YouTube. Adults between the ages of 18 and 29 are more likely to use Instagram and Snapchat. Businesses should use this demographic information to create social media ads for their products and target adults of all ages.
Improvement of Customer Retention
Customers will appreciate being given the opportunity to voice their opinions about the products and services they buy. Open-ended survey questions allow them to be as detailed in their feedback as possible. The more a business knows about customers’ opinions, the better. Customer satisfaction surveys give businesses a better understanding of their customers as well as improves customer engagement and interaction. Surveys can be an efficient, positive aspect of customer service. Providing high-quality customer service and making consistent efforts to meet customers’ needs can be impressive to customers, and set a business apart from their competitors. Customers are more likely to become loyal customers and frequent buyers when they feel like they can rely on a company to meet their needs, and feel like the company values their opinion.
