In the September 25th issue of the On-Demand E-Newsletter issue, Survey Advantage President, Michael Casey, shares with the community effective ways of implementing best practice surveying processes to stay connected with print buyers.
Survey Advantage now is offering busy managers the ability to view recorded trainings focused on customer retention, client share expansion, and referral generation, on-demand. Many times managers and business owners are unable to make the specific days and times of our webinars due to their busy schedule.
We have released several 7 to 8 minute, recorded trainings to explain how to survey using different printer MIS installations; PrintSmith, Printer’s Plan, Technique, Enterprise Print Management Solutions, Printer’s Plus, and a session on how to survey using all other MIS installations. To view the on-demand library and select your specific printer MIS, visit www.surveyadvantage.com/printers.
We are planning to release several new trainings in the future focused on our other verticals; marine services, association research, business services, parking facility feedback, manufacturing, education, finance, and healthcare.
Phoenix, AZ: Survey Advantage introduced three new printer programs to several members during an introduction July 27th at the headquarters of Printing Industries of Arizona. Survey Advantage will offer CustomerPulse, HealthCheck, and MarketCheck to PIAZ members interested in revenue preservation, client share expansion, and lead generation. CustomerPulse is designed to help printers obtain immediate feedback after jobs are completed while HealthCheck and MarketCheck are designed to help printers during strategic planning and ISO 9000 process improvement efforts.
In San Diego, CA during Franchise Services annual owners conference Survey Advantage and Printer’s Plan co-presented the newest version of Printer’s Plan and how surveying customers after jobs just got easier within the application. The new features of 2010 now flag the last time customers were surveyed to help manage survey frequency. In addition, the smartlink of Survey Advantage pulls in the job number from Printer’s Plan enabling printers to quickly and effectively follow-up with customers.
Print ‘09, the largest printing show in North America, will be in Chicago from September 11-16th. Survey Advantage president Michael Casey has been asked to lead a presentation on Monday, September 14th from 2:15PM to 4:00PM. Please read the overview below or visit www.myprint09.com for more details.
Topic: Creating and managing a customer retention strategy
On average 5% of a printer’s revenue is directed to the marketing budget to capture new customers through tradeshows, advertising, and get your name recognized on the cluttered field of printers. Printer’s with an effective, deliberate customer retention strategy benefit from lower marketing expenses through higher client share and customer referrals. Rarely does a printer lose an account completely, but many will lose client share if they don’t have an effective early warning system in place when a specific job goes out with a problem. This session will discuss ways printers have implemented programs to retain customers by driving loyalty, proactively gathering print job feedback, customizing services, and making their customers feel unique and special. Multiple studies have proven how much more profitable it is to grow revenues with existing accounts versus pursuing new accounts. Retaining customers is the best way to keep your business healthy, reduce marketing budgets, and drive referrals to your door.
What you will learn
• Effective customer retention strategies
• Printer loyalty programs
• Printer referral programs
• Printer loyalty benchmarks to shoot for
• The importance of surveys
• Best practice survey techniques
• Low cost customer feedback process
• Customer service processes to consider
Presentation for Executive Management, Owners, Customer Service Directors and Managers, Sales and Marketing Directors and Managers
Recently an association executive was trying to learn how to approach a membership award program for their conference. Below are a few things to consider. Granted this is a professional organization so take what you would like from it. Here is the response.
Hopefully the ideas below helps as you decide how to approach.
1) You may want to start off with maybe a few awards that focus on the key, most important awards. I have seen members dread going to their big dinner / award dinner because they state “I see more firewood being handed out and I never go to them”. Firewood meaning plagues. Be careful and pick your battle. Members will appreciate it and you can test the waters and expand from there.
2) Depending on your membership a plague is a nice gesture and something visible. Certificates may work if in a nice frame and something they would hang in their office or out in front. I noticed you are a teacher association so maybe the certificates would be nice right next to their degree. Also, academia may be more open to recognition versus trade associations so you may be onto something.
3) I don’t think the money is the thing. A nice plague or certificate should be fine. It is the recognition more than the money in most cases with professional organizations.
4) Definitely would give them a little token or money to come out and stay.Again, nothing crazy, but maybe the flight and motel room.
You know your membership and what gets them jazzed more than anyone so I suggest going with your first instinct or go out to members and ask, but start small if you can and then grow from there if possible. First year maybe 5 awards, and then increase as feedback comes back and you see the response from members and winners.
Also, promoting the awards is important and giving PR to those winning members. Maybe a short case study posted on your website explaining what they did to win and why they are a star peer.
From October 29th-31st, 2009 the National Association of Quick Printers will hold their annual conference in Austin, TX. Survey Advantage has been asked to present a session and moderate a session. Below is a summary of each session. Please visit www.naqp.com for more details on the conference.
Session 1: “Leveraging Customer Feedback to Expand Client Share, Drive Referrals, and Preserve Recurring Revenues” Mike Casey, Survey Advantage
Learn how printers have implemented processes to preserve recurring job revenues, drive referrals, and uncover opportunities to expand client share. Learn how to fully leverage your existing relationships to grow your business. This session will also cover ways to streamline the process by using technology and customer information you already have in your operation.
Session 2: “Panel: How to keep customers coming back for more” Moderator, Mike Casey, Survey Advantage
A prerequisite to being a printer today is producing quality on time. And everyone has solid customer service so there goes that differentiator! Your peers will share how they create and maintain loyal relationships by making their customers feel unique and special and change the game for competition knocking on their customer’s doors. Learn what successful, profitable printers are doing beyond shipping quality on time with great customer service. Learn the little and big things they do that keep customers coming back every time.
Associations, corporations, non-profits, small business owners always ask this question. It is a loaded question, but here are a few things to consider. Response rates can vary from <10% to >80% depending on a lot of things and how you approach the study.
1) Topic is very important. How important is it to them to share their brain and heart?? Get inside their head and know their appetite for the topic you are throwing at them.
2) Positioning is important. You must sell the idea to participate. I am not saying with incentives, but tell them why it is important TO THEM.
3) Know your audience. If your members are really engaged with you, you share lessons learned from previous surveys, then you have a great foundation for high response rates.
4) If you don’t send out a survey a week to members then you have a good foundation. Surveys should have meaning and pick your battles when asking members for help.
5) Try to keep them short whenever possible and tell them that. “This is a five question survey that will only take 2 minutes”. That will get better response then “This is a 125 question survey that will take you what feels like forever”.
6) Think about each question before you send it to them. Wording, clarity of purpose, understanding what information you want back and what format should be taken into account.
These all may seem obvious, but it is amazing how many surveys I get that start asking my gender, marital status, and income when frankly there is nothing in it for me, it is wasting my time, and I wonder what they plan to do with that information to get at me! I just received a birthday card last week for a trip to the Virgin Islands. It was my birthday the week before and that scared the *&*() out of me because they don’t know me, I don’t know them, it was a scam mailer, and I wonder what else they know about me. Be relevant and respect your audience.
Today ABBRA posted how to obtain copies of the ABBRA Boatyard Customer Satisfaction Benchmark report. This report was created by Survey Advantage in cooperation with ABBRA. Customer Satisfaction for facility quality, boatyard service and customer service were benchmarked from boater survey results collected in cooperation with ABBRA members using ABBRA CustomerPulse(TM) and ABBRA HealthCheck(TM), two programs managed by Survey Advantage to help boatyards stay connected with customers. To read the general summary and learn how to obtain your own copy of the benchmark report please visit http://www.abbra.org/customer-service-index.
Without getting long winded on this issue, membership retention communications starts with truly understanding their opinion on a regular basis rather than when renewals go out. I may be biased toward the survey model, but I have seen this as very effective if resources are dedicated to watching for those answering neutral or negative on questions relating to future action such as rejoining, recommending, or overall value of the association. This can be done on your typical annual assessment, but it isn’t timely. Short, 5 question surveys delivered after transactions, events, or any experience can uncover their feeling about the association at that moment. Why not address a membership need 6 months before renewal or right after a horrible experience so you can make it right immediately? Response time on issues is what helps retention, plus understanding what the expectations are and delivering on them.
Associations that understand membership needs and then hone their offerings to fit like a glove have the highest retention rates. Not rocket science, but just throwing stuff out there without assessing the value is a mistake.
I am probably stating the obvious, but hopefully it helps someone. Back to the coffee. Take care,