Marketing Research and Customer Engagement and Why it Matters to Your Business
Featuring Lynnette Leathers
Q: Do you provide research/survey on current clients as an outside source as to their satisfaction with current service and/or past clients asking why they no longer utilize our services? If so, are people usually cooperative in participation [Erica Castano] [erica@apersonalelf.com] [Q: 5:03 PM]
A: Erica, this is a very good question. We often conduct survey research among current clients/customers and past clients/customers for our clients. We measure satisfaction and loyalty (it’s important to measure both). A well designed survey can tell you your performance on key attributes (i.e., are the staff friendly, ease of doing business, quality product) that will highlight your strengths as well as weaknesses.
When designing a customer satisfaction and loyalty survey (our survey is called MindTrackTM) we often ask all customers (current and past clients/customers) if they had a problem and if so to please tell us about that problem. This provides the opportunity to understand what is causing customer problems and to identify the largest problems first, which will give you insight into customer attrition (why they are leaving). If you have a large amount of customer churn/turn-over or the customers make the first purchase and many of those customers do not purchase again, it is likely that research will provide you with some real insights.
To answer the second part of your question: The level of participation tends to vary by product and service. Some products/brands/companies have close relationships with their customers and those customers are more likely to have a higher response rate. For example, a customer may have more affinity with a product that he uses twice a week versus one he uses once a year.
We typically get very good response rates with online research relative to other collection methods (mail, phone). However, the key to getting enough responses is to clearly define your Universe (how many customers do you have in total or the potential number of people that you have to choose from that you can survey). Then, consider how many customers you need to respond to have meaningful information. This is typically where statistics is required to calculate the sample size/number of people that you need to feel confident about your results. A reasonable expectation may be a 10:1 ratio – meaning for every 10 people that you ask you may get 1 response.
Our website: www.mindspotinc.com and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, The Mindless Babble Blog, Linked In, or Delicious.
