Middleboro, MA – August 11, 2008 – Enterprise Print Management Solutions (EPMS) announced today that Survey Advantage has become a Strategic Partner. EPMS, the developer of the Enterprise print management system, has added the integration to Survey Advantage’s Customer Alert directly into the Enterprise Estimating/Order main module. Users are now able to select orders and launch electronic job surveys from within Enterprise directly. Printers are alerted immediately upon survey completion with feedback about the level of customer satisfaction with a job or jobs. On-line reports are delivered daily to monitor performance trends over time, and industry benchmarking helps to analyze performance objectively.

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Over the past six months Survey Advantage has been featured monthly in American Printer magazine in a column titled “And the Survey Says…”, offering real business intelligence to printers through results of print buyer feedback surveys. If you have missed any of the issues, here is a roundup:

• • January 2008 | printer communications methods survey
  • February 2008 | product quality benchmark
  • March 2008 | Where to diversify and expand in 2008?
  • April 2008 | And the winners are…
  • May 2008 | Get enthused about your customer’s business!
  • June 2008 | Is your business maximizing client share?
  • July 2008 | Long term, don’t neglect the Net

Look for more print buyer feedback in future issues of American Printer.

Survey Advantage is proud to announce a new partnership with Bluebird Auto Rental Systems. Details of the program are laid out in the Summer edition of the BARSTalk newsletter. Over the next few months Bluebird and Survey Advantage will implement a program enabling users of the Bluebird software to automate customer surveying after completed rental transactions, track ticket numbers on each survey, and trend performance over time. Bluebird Customers interested in participating in our early adopter program should e-mail Mike Casey at mcasey@surveyadvantage.com or call 401-560-0311 ext 103.  To read the full article, download the PDF. For more information on Bluebird, visit their website here.

This past May, Survey Advantage and Marina Dockage Magazine teamed up to conduct a water access study of marina operators across North America.  The study focuses on major issues facing marinas as they relate to water access, shoreline property demand, and shoreline development.   Survey Advantage helped set goals, design the survey and questions, drive response rates, collect data, and create reports while Marina Dockage focused on what they do best; analyzing information and reporting their findings.  The corresponding article, authored by Peter Gallanis appears in the August, 2008 issue of  Marina Dock Age Magazine and is a must read for Marinas everywhere. To read the full article, download the PDF here

During the month of May, 2008 Survey Advantage conducted a pilot with four Sir Speedy franchise owners as part of a corporate pilot program with franchisor Franchise Services. After this successful pilot, Survey Advantage’s three print buyer feedback and benchmark programs have been adopted by Franchise Services and will be rolled out at the upcoming national convention to be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida July 10th and 11th, 2008. Programs will be demonstrated during the exposition.

 By Mike Casey

Last night I went to Home Depot to buy rebar for a bunch of railroad ties I am putting down.  I got my receipt and saw a request for feedback www.homedepotopinion.com with a chance to win up to $5,000!   While this is a great gesture I probably wouldn’t take the time unless I had a big issue or was tight on cash.  We have found that incentives may not drive up response rates and many times skew the data. Some survey takers go straight through surveys picking a column and clicking away just to get entered.  If the intent is to learn from your customers and drive improvements then be careful.  Most people taking surveys are doing so because they value you or your company in some way, they know you will do something with their shared information, and they want to see you succeed.   Just having a place to go to vent or share a great experience is enough in most cases, but the most important thing is to show customers that you will do something with the information and follow-up quickly.   B2B relationships typically get high return rates because a vendor is relied on to help them succeed.  The same goes for school parent surveys given where a parent wants the very best for their child.   In these cases there is no need for an incentive.

Where incentives work well is when there is a big survey taker time commitment and a great incentive is given to everyone who participates.  An example is when an association or industry research company is conducting a major study such as to collect data on industry pricing or wages for that industry.  In this case there is value to the participant if they receive a free copy of the final industry report and they feel the information will help them make good decisions.  This incentive does two things.  First, every participant gets value.  Second, the information you gather will be accurate since they don’t want to skew the data since they will receive the information to help drive their business. 

By Mike Casey
Quick question:  How many of you are continuously, deliberately mass e-mailing to your customers?  Many printers feel that either e-blasts are an annoyance to customers or it cuts the grain with what they do best, printing on paper.  Well, a recent survey showed that 58% of print buyers prefer e-blasts from their print suppliers “IF” they are informative.  If you have a seasonal plant vacation or other planned event coming up before the holidays, have just released a new capability, or have an educational message of any kind to help you serve customers better, why not send it?    You must have seen some value in this e-blast because you are reading it!  Why?  Because of the content!   In another study a printer asked their customers directly if they wanted to continue to get the e-blasts.  Over 85% said yes and the funny thing is that the print buyers who said no did not opt out.   In many cases they shared what they would like to see in future e-communications.  Keep content relevant, know your customer’s interests, and e-blast at their desired frequency.

Keep an open mind when thinking about how to reduce costs of marketing and also when thinking of how your customers want to be treated!

Findings from surveys ran with over 1000 print buyers in the early part of 2008 will be published in the May and June issues of American Printer Magazine.  Results will include print buyers demands for additional products and service, as well is what is most important to them in selecting a printer.

Survey Advantage recently published a case study in the Association of Marina Industries Advocate, their monthly publication.   The study featured Charlestown City Marina collecting real time feedback from transient boaters, to keep a pulse on day to day operations.  You can see the full newsletter here, or go directly to the case study here.

A webinar is a live meeting that takes place over the web. Attendees in different locations “login” to the meeting host (usually a third party, such as Webex or Centra) via their computers and watch the meeting on their screens. The audio, if there is audio, can be via telephone or the web (voice over IP).Webinars might consist of live video, a PowerPoint presentation, Word or other types of documents, or any combination thereof. Some webinars are one-directional (meaning the attendees watch passively); others are more interactive, where attendees interact with the moderator, each other, and/or the documents being viewed.