As a business owner in Second Life® it is sometimes difficult to obtain feedback from customers and to turn your business in a direction to satisfy or attract customers. We sometimes get tunnel vision working within our business and creating and promoting that we don’t see the needs and desires of our customers. We often think we know what’s best and that if we make a good product, it will sell. But what if it isn’t selling, your expectations were higher or you run into a roadblock about what to do next.
Well getting feedback from customers is crucial to running a successful business. You may be heading in a completely foreign direction to the needs and wants of your customers. But getting feedback is not easy. Generally you will not hear from your customers unless something is drastically wrong. You want to hear sooner so that you can avoid problems down the road.
I’ve tried to get feedback in many ways. I’ve included a short feedback form in my packages, have a comment section in the customer service center and keep a pager so that I can be contacted if a customer needs me. But none of these have had any impact. Seldom if ever do customers respond.
Generally, a customer doesn’t want to spend time giving feedback. It’s not that they don’t want to give their opinion, but time is important, here and rl, and while they may spend the time shopping, spending more time writing a response may not be desired.
While I want to know what my customers think and what suggestions they may have, I also understand that their time is as precious as mine is. I value their feedback and understand that I have to make it relatively quick, easy and rewarding for them to provide it.
I recently set up a Customer Satisfaction Survey for my customers to complete. While this doesn’t completely satisfy the time issue, I have tried to take a few steps to make the experience a little better.
First and foremost, there has to be some kind of a benefit for someone to complete a survey. In my case, I’m giving a 10% refund to anyone completing the survey. On smaller items, that may not seem like much, but if you are spending 300-1000 lindens, getting a refund of 30-100 is kind of enticing.
Second, keep the survey short. Again, it’s a time issue and you don’t want to ask your customers to spend a fair bit of time (even 5 mins) after they purchase to fill out a survey. I came up with 12 questions and it takes no longer than one minute to complete.
Keep the questions short and relevant and don’t ask for essay answers. Get to the point with each question, short, concise and keep them to what you want to know. Don’t’ get off track in your questions, but design them to give you the things you want to know. Provide them with ready made answers to choose from so that they can move to the next question easily. Having long essay type answers means they will have to do more thinking and spend more time with an answer and probably will lead them to not completing it. One of the questions, preferably at the end, can be a text answer for any comments or suggestions they have. That way if they feel like giving more of an opinion they can.
When you do review the answers and give a refund to someone who completed your survey, do so promptly. This doesn’t have to be within a few minutes, but check the survey on a regular basis and don’t keep your customers waiting for their refund. As well, send them a note thanking them for their comments and advising them that you have sent the refund.
So far, I’ve had a little better response than I have with other methods. It’s interesting to find out what your customers think and what they do or do not expect. The information you receive from these types of surveys is valuable and can benefit your business if you cater to your customers needs.
I have a sign in every store advising of the refund and a link to the url. There are many free survey sites on the net, just search and you’ll see. I am using SurveyGizmo, but feel free to search and choose the one of your liking.
Remember, keeping the status quo and remaining stagnant in business means your earnings will remain the same or more likely drop. Keep up with the wants and desires of your customers and give them an opportunity for feedback. Take the feedback seriously and follow up on suggestions.
Well getting feedback from customers is crucial to running a successful business. You may be heading in a completely foreign direction to the needs and wants of your customers. But getting feedback is not easy. Generally you will not hear from your customers unless something is drastically wrong. You want to hear sooner so that you can avoid problems down the road.
I’ve tried to get feedback in many ways. I’ve included a short feedback form in my packages, have a comment section in the customer service center and keep a pager so that I can be contacted if a customer needs me. But none of these have had any impact. Seldom if ever do customers respond.
Generally, a customer doesn’t want to spend time giving feedback. It’s not that they don’t want to give their opinion, but time is important, here and rl, and while they may spend the time shopping, spending more time writing a response may not be desired.
While I want to know what my customers think and what suggestions they may have, I also understand that their time is as precious as mine is. I value their feedback and understand that I have to make it relatively quick, easy and rewarding for them to provide it.
I recently set up a Customer Satisfaction Survey for my customers to complete. While this doesn’t completely satisfy the time issue, I have tried to take a few steps to make the experience a little better.
First and foremost, there has to be some kind of a benefit for someone to complete a survey. In my case, I’m giving a 10% refund to anyone completing the survey. On smaller items, that may not seem like much, but if you are spending 300-1000 lindens, getting a refund of 30-100 is kind of enticing.
Second, keep the survey short. Again, it’s a time issue and you don’t want to ask your customers to spend a fair bit of time (even 5 mins) after they purchase to fill out a survey. I came up with 12 questions and it takes no longer than one minute to complete.
Keep the questions short and relevant and don’t ask for essay answers. Get to the point with each question, short, concise and keep them to what you want to know. Don’t’ get off track in your questions, but design them to give you the things you want to know. Provide them with ready made answers to choose from so that they can move to the next question easily. Having long essay type answers means they will have to do more thinking and spend more time with an answer and probably will lead them to not completing it. One of the questions, preferably at the end, can be a text answer for any comments or suggestions they have. That way if they feel like giving more of an opinion they can.
When you do review the answers and give a refund to someone who completed your survey, do so promptly. This doesn’t have to be within a few minutes, but check the survey on a regular basis and don’t keep your customers waiting for their refund. As well, send them a note thanking them for their comments and advising them that you have sent the refund.
So far, I’ve had a little better response than I have with other methods. It’s interesting to find out what your customers think and what they do or do not expect. The information you receive from these types of surveys is valuable and can benefit your business if you cater to your customers needs.
I have a sign in every store advising of the refund and a link to the url. There are many free survey sites on the net, just search and you’ll see. I am using SurveyGizmo, but feel free to search and choose the one of your liking.
Remember, keeping the status quo and remaining stagnant in business means your earnings will remain the same or more likely drop. Keep up with the wants and desires of your customers and give them an opportunity for feedback. Take the feedback seriously and follow up on suggestions.
You can view my Customer Satisfaction Survey here:
http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/99781/jhd-survey
Good luck!
Jenny
Jenny - Those are all good suggestions, especially offering an incentive which does help increase your response rate.
ReplyDeleteYes, the old saying "time is money" does apply. There is a difference between doing something you want to do (ie shopping) as compared to doing something you asked to do (ie: fill out a survey). Filling out a survey or even making comments on a blog buts you out there for people to see and maybe even criticize you, so an incentive is important. Your right about finding the balance of what that incentive should be be as in your point about $1000L buying but getting $100L discount. But what you really said is that your survey catories to the high end buyers and not the low end.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had the magic bullet solution but maybe giving your survey contributors a choice is better? Perhaps 10% discount or an item?
Anyways, good article.
Thank you so much Zoomerang.
ReplyDeleteGood point JulieAnne, I agree completely. The incentive is lobsided toward more expensive purchases. I'm not sure what kind of incentive you can provide to items selling for 25L or so as 10% wouldn't be much. I did however get a survey completed by someone who bought a 25L item and she seemed happy when i sent her a 3L refund. I'm always trying to find better ways and I would like to entice purchasers of lower priced items in addition to higher priced items. And thanks for the compliment.