Five things you may want to consider when setting up an effective boater feedback process:

1) Make it painless for both you and the customer. Short, timely, to the point, easy to take surveys. Boaters want five or six questions. No more. Nowadays people want convenience. Online surveys take 30 seconds if designed right. Go online.

2) Leverage your reservation or service management software. Contact and invoice information is all there. Use it for timely feedback real time. It should take less than a minute to get the boater’s emails.

3) Make it a process, not an event. Survey close to when boatyard service is complete or the transient stay, but don’t over survey. New and sporadic buying customers within 30 days of order, repeat customers no more than every 90 days. Too much of a good thing kills response rates and relationships. You can ask one marketing question, but no more. Ask what they buy elsewhere. They will tell you and then you can expand client share.

4) Shoot for a 25 to 30% response rate. If done right you will hit that. Monitor response rates, product and service quality, and loyalty. Review the info in team meetings.

5) Do something with the data. The boater gave you a gift by sharing. Cherish it and thank them by following up on leads and correcting problems. The best run marine service providers have a process for this.

Good luck in retaining customers by trolling for continuous feedback, staying paranoid, and doing something with the information gathered.

The presentation by Michael Casey, President of Survey Advantage, is part of the annual regional meeting to be held March 4th and 5th in Greenville, SC. The event is focused on helping Allegra Print & Imaging owners grow their businesses. Michael Casey’s talk will offer advice on how to leverage technologies such as Printer’s Plan™ and EFI Printsmith™ software to improve revenue preservation strategies and expand business with existing accounts.

“We were excited with the invitation,” said Casey. “Allegra and Survey Advantage have been strategic partners for over five years helping their franchise owners drive customer loyalty and expand revenues. What sets Allegra apart is their dedication to supporting their owners in the field through Allegra University programs.”
Survey Advantage will showcase two graphic communications services, CustomerPulse™ and MarketPulse™, which are turnkey services focused on improving print buyer awareness of all services offered, warning the printer when loyalty is slipping, and identifying changes in customer needs. Survey Advantage has helped hundreds of graphics communication businesses over the past six years.

For more information on these services or view printer case studies visit www.surveyadvantage.com/printers

Background:
On December 3, 2010 I placed an order for replacement windows with one of the big two home improvement centers (Lowes, Home Depot). I don’t want to throw stones here so will just leave it at that. The sales reps were great and overall I am happy, but they could have done a few things much better. Here are the strengths and weaknesses of this transaction through the eyes of the consumer.

Strengths:
* The sales rep who came out to meet.
* The quality of workmanship while installing.
* Availability when I called the center for help.

Weaknesses:
* Inconsistency in information flow.
* Timeliness of information and installing. The windows finally went in January 29th, 2011
* Their survey process was intimidating and left a sour taste in my mouth.

Let’s focus on the way they tried to gather candid feedback. It is great that they had a process, but clearly the fox is watching the hen house here. Ever buy a car at a dealership and hear the plea for a top rating so they get their bonus? Well, that happened here.

First Interaction for feedback.

The installation person pulls out a survey form at the end of the installation, hands it to me, and asks 5 Yes/No questions I could not answer until I went around to each window. That would take 30 minutes to check to make sure I could answer the question. The good part was that it forced me to do this. Then the 240 lber. looked me in the eye and asked the dreaded question “You are going to get a call in a few days from the local store asking you to rate me. Is there anything I could have done that would stop you from giving me the highest rating of 7 when they call you? Then corporate will call you in two weeks. Is there anything holding you back from giving me a 7 at that point as well?” I could not blame him for asking, but boy was that uncomfortable. Here is why.

* He had been in the house for the full day and I had a rapport with him now.
* He explained the fact that these surveys are critical to his contractor status with them.
* My first thought was “Yes, I do have a problem and here is why.”
* I was told the windows came in weeks ago and you were suppose to call me.

*The center was surprised you did not call me when I finally called after 6 weeks.

* You were suppose to be here Friday, called me that day to say you weren’t coming.

* You made me change my Saturday schedule to stay home another day for you.

*This job took 30 days longer and you knew this was a rental property that is holding up the tenant.

But, instead I just smiled at the 240 lber. and said “NO”. We are all set.

Second Interaction for Feedback:

On Monday I listened to a voicemail message on my cell phone from the center that came in Saturday asking if he showed up and if I was all set. That was odd since I thought they would know. Then I noticed another message from the person’s manager calling Monday morning with the following message ” Hi, this is Joe, I noticed Sally called you a couple times this weekend for feedback and you haven’t responded. This is the last time we will call and assume everything is OK”. I only got one call so thought this was very strange so I called Sally. Sally explained how important these surveys are and after I explained how uncomfortable I was with the way the survey went with the installer she just explained how important it was and that is the way it goes. She only asked me one question about being satisfied and was done, but did explain that corporate may call in a couple weeks and to please give a 7 rating. Again, a plea for them to save their job. Frankly, this is not a process improvement initiative as much as a way for corporate America to keep tabs on the troops as a top down watchdog. Something seemed broken.

Lessons learned:
1) Make surveying a comfortable safe environment for the consumer or buyer of the service.
2) Make the process easy to give feedback and try to pull the human element out of the equation.
3) Don’t get defensive when getting feedback and look at all feedback as a gift.
4) Be careful not to bonus employees in an unnatural way with your process or you will not get meaningful feedback.

I wonder if I will get that corporate call in a couple weeks. Wonder how that will go.

Recently I had the opportunity to work with five business owners who are part of an executive group. Basically they get together every six months to help each other with strategic planning. The group decided to survey customers to find out how they were doing, benchmark performance with each other and probe into several marketing areas. The goal was to use the data as they plan for 2011. Online surveying is a great way to get customer e-mail databases. It is shocking how many businesses still don’t put a priority on managing e-mail addresses, but actively manage phone numbers and mailing addresses. I know our phones don’t ring like they used to, but e-mail volume has more than made up for that. We all get a continuous flow of e-mails from clients and prospects. Welcome to the Internet Age.

The basic requirement to any e-marketing or e-surveying process or project is to export your customer database out of your production, invoicing, or customer relationship management system. The one place with all customer data may vary by industry, but the key decision markers are typically in one of these three areas.

Enter the buyer’s e-mail address into the system when entering an order. It is amazing how many businesses don’t do this, instead burying customers’ e-mail addresses in Outlook, ACT! or some other disconnected system. How do you leverage the customer information if the data is fragmented and on a laptop or in an individual’s e-mail address book? You must have a central place, and it all begins with order or transaction entry. Granted, there are other decision makers you want to track, but many times, people responsible for the next order are included when entering the order or transaction.

Now, back to the peer group project. When starting this project, all the businesses felt it would be easy to get their customer list. After four weeks of hard work they finally got their lists together. It was painful and a wake up call for some of these businesses. One business got the list to us right away, and it was very clean as they already had a well greased process with discipline. Another business had over 30% of their customer database with bad e-mail addresses and this was a customer list! The great thing about e-mailing surveys is you get feedback on the undelivered e-mails and don’t need to wait for the Post Office to send you the report and undelivered pieces. It is immediate and you also learn why the e-mail was not delivered so you can correct it or investigate. The best-run businesses are getting under 10%, and 5% is stellar. How do they do this?

Here are five tips:

1. Start at order or transaction entry. All the MIS systems have a field for e-mail address. Many businesses are not entering anything into this field because, with most systems, the team doesn’t e-mail out of the system as with Outlook. There appears to be no reason to enter this information. Educate your team on why e-mails must be entered with orders. Over a 30-day period you will be thrilled at how many e-mails you will have. Then start using the information. Start now.

2. Educate your team on the value of entering e-mail addresses into the system. Give them the big picture. Many businesses are entering the Accounts Payable people, and this is important. The buyer’s e-mail address is just as critical. The best way to help sales teams be more effective and efficient is to leverage e-mail to send marketing messages and complement what they are doing face-to-face or over the phone. You must work as a team and have corporate messaging going out to help sales people. They can’t be everywhere, all the time, but a focused e-mail campaign or project feedback survey can really help them retain customers and expand opportunities. Have a team meeting.

3. Assign someone to keep the database clean. E-mail management is different than phone or mailing address management. Most people have multiple e-mail addresses, move around a lot and change e-mails. E-surveying and e-marketing services inform you if someone is not getting e-mail. You need to know this and call the customer to find out what is happening, or delete them from the system. Someone needs to police this and manage a process to keep on top of it. Set 10% as your goal for bad e-mail addresses and you will be in good shape. 5% would be even better.

4. Have an e-mail management and e-communication strategy with discipline. Engage everyone in your business about the strategic importance of managing e-mails in one central place. I prefer the MIS system or tech support system, as that is where the orders and transactions are flowing, and I know it is easier to earn more business from existing customers than to chase prospects. There are two different messages going out depending on whether they are prospects or customers. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems sometimes integrate with the MIS, but if they don’t, set up a system to de-dupe or filter out customers so you don’t over communicate.

5. Make it a priority. Too often I hear that this is something we are going to get to, but then it never happens or it takes over a year to get done. Starting with order entry can quickly get data flowing into a system so you can leverage it in 30 days. It should not be a major project, but set up baby steps to get there over time. Start small. Maybe for the first month you have 30 e-mails in the system. Then you can promote something to those contacts, know they are good e-mails and know they are customers. Don’t procrastinate.

Good luck with your customer base hygiene efforts as you push ahead in 2011.

Any strategic planning book stresses that the first step is analyzing customer and marketing data to make more grounded decisions. Well, why not go out to your customers and ask them strategic questions? Position the survey as a planning tool to help you serve them better. Look at each survey as a gift and a road map for when you meet with each customer to plan together. The survey results and trends will help you have more meaningful, focused planning meetings with your customers and staff.

A well designed annual strategic survey typically yields 30% response rates for B2B clients or high end B2C customers. This information is invaluable to connect at an individual level as well as uncover trends when planning for 2011. Here are a few areas to consider:

* Improvement areas for next year.
* Services to consider rolling out.
* Consideration for other services you offer.
* Sourcing for different services.
* Percentage of business awarded to you.
* Awareness of different services you offer.
* Quality of products and services.
* Budget or spending trends for 2011.
* Supplier decision making process.
* Marketing communications effectiveness.

Customers will share with you if you ask in a thoughtful way. Take the time to do it right. Customers will appreciate this. Connect with your customers early, change the game and position yourself above the competition as you approach 2011. It starts with putting your house in order, so consider running an annual survey to get that foundation. Good luck in 2011.

*Learning what others are doing.
*Leaving with fresh ideas.
*Being held accountable for results
*Networking and cultivating friendships with successful people.
*Trending and driving performance over time.
*Hearing candid feedback and opinions from industry experts.
*Specific, expert advice from owners dealing with the same issues.

Standardizing Customer Loyalty Metrics

Most peer groups standardize on reports to pinpoint opportunities for improvement and growth. Many use benchmarks similar to those published by their industry; benchmarks such as wages, pricing, and financial benchmark studies. The best peer groups benchmark customer loyalty and share at each meeting a standardized SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) based on customer feedback. Benefits of implementing customer feedback into peer groups include:

*Customer-centered goal setting.
*Increasing customer loyalty levels with all members of the group.
*Challenging peer group members to drive improvements based on facts.
*Disciplined, focused discussions around marketing, customer service and sales efforts
*Quantified, fact-based decision making tied to customer needs.

Standardize on the customer loyalty question(s), the way customer feedback is obtained and how it will be shared. Make each owner responsible for bringing one improvement area and one opportunity for growth identified from customer feedback. Each owner brings his or her customer loyalty scores to the meeting, and those scores are displayed, side by side, to help during discussions.

We all stress how important loyalty is to our survival and growth, yet we know we can do a better job measuring, monitoring and leveraging customer information in a disciplined, deliberate way. Standardizing on how customer feedback is shared during peer group meetings and setting better, customer-centered goals is one more way best-in-class businesses continue to distance themselves from their competitors.

Bottom line is that you must take action on the results or don’t bother surveying. Surveying should be conducted for process improvement and expansion. It shouldn’t be to get that ISO auditor out your door and do it just to say you do something! Surveying is not an event, but an ongoing process.” Below are the top 5 questions we are asked when printers are setting up a print buyer feedback process.

Should I survey customers with every print order?

For repeat buyers we suggest surveying no more than every 90 days. If surveyed too often, regular repeat buyers will become annoyed and you will drive down loyalty. Also, in your email message state something like “You won’t get this survey more often than every 90 days if you buy from us regularly.” Tell customers upfront so they won’t assume the survey process is going to turn into a spam issue. If you are correctly managing the frequency of surveys to repeat buyers, you can anticipate a 20% to 35% response rate on a continuous basis. Let the feedback flow and let customers know that the survey is just another way to stay connected and responsive.

How many questions should I ask?

Keep the survey to less than 30 seconds (5-7 questions maximum). State In the email invitation that it will take less than a minute of their time and stick to that promise. Don’t say that it will take 30 seconds and then ask 30 questions. You may want to change the questions regularly and the invitation email to keep it fresh and inviting.

When considering the number of questions, be aware that there are two types of surveys. A strategic survey helps to map out necessary investments during the upcoming year. Customers appreciate this type of survey. If it’s positioned correctly and you promise to share the results with them, they will give you 5 minutes and answer around 20 questions. The second type of survey is the post-job survey or the 90-day pulse type survey to keep connected in an ongoing fashion. We suggest doing both because one is strategic and one tactical, but if budget and time is a constraint, go for the tactical survey asking customers for 1 minute to answer 5 or 6 questions and keep communication open all the time.

If I can only ask one question, what should it be?

“How likely are you to recommend us to colleagues and friends?” This is the ultimate question and there is an entire book dedicated to this question called “The Ultimate Question.”

What are the biggest mistakes I should avoid when surveying customers?

1. Waiting too long between surveys. I spoke to a printer last week that hadn’t surveyed customers in 10 years. He got good results, but when I asked why he waited 10 years he said it took too much time. Using today’s technology, surveying should not be that time consuming. Just read Lori Fuller’s case study from University of Nebraska at www.surveyadvantage.com/printers
2. Making the survey too long.
3. Making the process too complicated so it isn’t done continuously.
4. Assigning the wrong person to manage the process. I have seen “gaming” of the system where an internal person doesn’t survey certain customers because they don’t want to hear complaints. That’s a bad reason not to survey. You need to hear from everyone.
5. Not continually monitoring the process. If management doesn’t watch the process and the person assigned looks at surveying as an optional task, it might not get done regularly. Or it may stop and management never realizes that it has stopped. Gathering and monitoring customer feedback starts at the top and must be part of the culture of the operation — not just another task thrown out there.

Once the information is gathered, what should I do?

The best, most successful printers contact every customer who responds to the survey. That is right, every one. There is a story behind every survey even the glowing ones. Thanking those customers with great comments shows you listened and appreciate their comments. If you get a referral call, thank them so you get more referrals. Thankfulness breeds more good work. Those who are neutral about the experience should be asked how you can change to get top marks. Comments that are positive should be acknowledged and once again respondents should be thanked for their time and candidness. Negative survey results are typically the ones that gain the most attention, but there is usually more opportunity to sell to those customers who are happy and will share with you other services that they buy elsewhere or provide a referral. Remember contacting respondents builds loyalty, and they are more likely to fill out the survey once again later in the year.

The best, most successful printers also share the glowing comments with their teams to build moral. Post it on the lunchroom bulletin board. Managers can tell an employee that their efforts are appreciated, but it means so much more to get it from the customer directly. Approximately 95% of survey comments are positive. Don’t bury them in the customer feedback database. Share them. In addition, the best printers put questions on the survey that probe for other selling opportunities. Keep the survey to around 5 questions, but build one question in to learn what services they are buying elsewhere or to ask for a referral.

Don’t just look at surveying as a reactive, passive process. It can be a selling process as well.
Take the compiled information and do something with it. Just today I spoke with a printer who had 30% of his customers share what they bought elsewhere. Sadly, he hadn’t followed up on any of them because he was so busy in production. He did say over the next few months he is going to make a conscious effort to pursue those leads to expand client share. The good news was that he followed up on every referral and closed two new accounts.

Another great strategy is to print out the survey results weekly and review them with your team. Discuss what customers are saying and together come up with a game plan. One printer does an annual survey and then goes through all the nearly 300 responses, does his own SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats), and delegates at the account level and strategic execution level. This printer has done this for 4 years now and has had tremendous success even in a weak Michigan economy.

If sending out a survey is the first and last step, you are dropping the ball at the most important time. Put the information to work for your business. If conducted properly, surveys are indispensable tools for growing your business, enhancing performance and making informed decisions about the allocation of resources.
For more information, read printer case studies at http://www.surveyadvantage.com/printers

]]> http://surveyadvantage.com/press/2010/04/28/top-5-questions-printers-ask-about-surveying-customers-and-the-answers/feed/ 0 http://surveyadvantage.com/press/2010/02/04/we-can-learn-a-lot-from-a-business-owner-who-closed-his-doors/ http://surveyadvantage.com/press/2010/02/04/we-can-learn-a-lot-from-a-business-owner-who-closed-his-doors/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:53:45 +0000 Michael Casey http://surveyadvantage.com/press/?p=378 It is easy to hear the success stories of businesses that have gone to the moon, but most of these business owners have lived through tough times as well.  Just read a book on Edison’s life and you will see the # of failures he had before his great invention.

 

Recently a business owner closed his doors, but shared his lessons learned with “What They Think”, an organization focused on sharing lessons with the printing industry.  Below is an interview and details.  Any business owner dealing with this economy can take some valuable lessons from this.

 

The Rise and Fall of Mallard Press

 

By Cary Sherburne
Published: October 12, 2009

 

The recent closure of Mallard Press caught our eye. While I don’t know Bob Gay or the company personally, a review of its web site revealed a company that appeared to be on the right track and making the right investments for the future.  Bob Gay was kind enough to speak frankly with us about the factors that led to the demise of the company.  Perhaps there are lessons here for others in the industry who may be teetering on the edge or worried about the future. Mallard Press was an independently owned and operated commercial printing business that had been in operation in the Chicago area for 30 years.  At its peak, it brought in revenues of over $5 million.  Here’s what Bob had to say. In Part One of the article, he discusses what happened; in Part Two, we move to what perhaps should have happened.

 

WTT: Bob, what would you say was the major contributing factor that led to closing the business?

BG: My biggest problem was that I had taken on too much debt.  I had made investments that were required to take my business where I wanted it to go, and I had about three and a half years to the finish line.  We were doing fine until about December of 2007, which was our first bad month, with sales off 18%. I remember seeing those numbers as if it were yesterday.

 

WTT: What were some of those investments?

BG: We had invested in Canon color and black & white digital to the tune of $10,000 to $15,000 per month.  We were into Komori for about $14,000 per month.  And the KBA press, which is a marvelous press and probably the most versatile printing press in the world, bar none, was an $11,000-per-month investment.  That is a lot of debt service for a company with $5 million in revenues.  We were building to grow, but any downtick in revenues was painful because of that debt service.

 

WTT: When you saw the December 2007 results, what actions did you take?

BG: We did make some adjustments to the business, and as a result were able to go through the spring of 2008 fairly strong, although the June through September period was below average, down 15-20%.  It gets tough to recover from four months of consecutive losses.

 

WTT: To what did you attribute the revenue decline?

BG: To a change in customer buying habits.  We did an analysis of our client base.  We were not losing clients; they were just spending less, due to the economy and possibly to more use of electronic media.

 

WTT: So what did you do next?

BG: We then looked at increasing our client base through acquisitions.  AGS, a die cutting operation, was basically closing its doors and we made a deal with them that would keep their company together, because the services they offered were services we were outsourcing anyway. There was also another company that was closing its doors and we purchased some of their assets as well. This was about $2 million in business and we took 10 of their 18 employees on board. As a result of all of that, we had a terrific December.

 

WTT: Then what happened as the new year began?

BG: From January through now, everything tailed off.  Sales were down 27%.  We again looked at our customer base, and it was the same Top Ten customers, but their sales volumes were down.  We even had some loyal print brokers that were getting less work for the same reason—their customers were also dialing down.

 

WTT: I am sure all of this must have led to some painful decisions.

BG: Absolutely.  We made some first quarter adjustments to get things in line, but I knew that it wasn’t going to be enough.  After the second quarter, I really needed to make some deep cuts.  This was extremely painful, because people who had done nothing wrong were losing their jobs.  The remaining staff took pay cuts to keep their jobs.

 

WTT: In hindsight, would you have made staff cuts earlier?

BG: Yes, but I was slow to do so because it is just not in my nature.  These people worked hard, and I was optimistic that the services we provided would help bring the business back.  This is how we had always survived before—because of our diversification.  If one area was not performing, the other two areas could pick up the slack.  But with the decrease in sales and additional 10 employees, I increased payroll by $400,000 but only increased sales by 1.5%. I was operating as a man in business, not a businessman.  A businessman would have made the cuts sooner, but the man in business had hoped it would come back.

 

WTT: What else did you do to try to salvage the situation?

BG: We went to the equipment finance companies, Wells Fargo, GE and IKON Financial, and working with them was tremendous; they were all on board to help us. We were able to negotiate six months interest only payments to help us weather the storm and work to get our sales up.  We also went to our landlord to see what they would be willing to do.  We let them know that others were participating and we weren’t just coming to them for help.  They were a bit reluctant to help and I basically had to sell my soul a little to get their cooperation.  They gave us six months at half rent, but the negotiations gave them the full right to kick us out if they didn’t think I was going to perform after these six months.

 

WTT: I take it that resulted in the crowning blow, then.

BG: About three-quarters of the way through the process, we provided the landlord with a financial statement per the agreement.  It was a bad June and we were not making any headway.  They performed their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders by exercising their right to evict.  We looked around for other spaces and looked to our lender for some additional support.  Even though we eliminated 12 employees and took some other steps that brought us back to break-even, our lender decided not to extend our line of credit or to provide us with the funding to move the business to a different location.

 

WTT: Why was that? Presumably you had been doing business with them for a long time.

BG: Yes, but their position was that we were maxed out on our line of credit with no good outlook for being able to pay it all back, and they were simply not in a position to lend us the $100,000 or more it would have cost us to move.  This was on a Friday afternoon, and rather abruptly, the next Monday, per the request of the bank, the company went into receivership in order to pay down the line of credit and the other creditors as well as take control of all receivables.  That obviously brought the business to a screeching halt.

 

WTT: Why do you think the banks took that position after working with you for so long?

BG: I have probably always been the exception when they have discussions in their board room.  I can just hear the discussions:  “They are out of factor, but Bob has a passion for the business and we believe in what he is doing. He has built a unique company that has advantages over standard printing companies, and he will be a survivor.  He has done it before.” To be honest with you, in 2008, I was swinging back and forth between being three to five months behind in rent.  I never thought 2009 sales would still just not materialize. Clients are simply buying differently, and I don’t know if those levels are going to continue to decline or whether they are even going to continue to use print in many cases.

 

WTT: What about all of the government talk about bailing out small businesses, stimulus, TARP and all of that?  Did you try for any of that money?

BG: Sure did.  I asked about an SBA loan that could spread the short-term debt over a longer term with a lower interest rate and I couldn’t even get that. Now 38 people are without jobs. So much for economic stimulus.

 

Read the second half of this interview

]]> http://surveyadvantage.com/press/2010/02/04/we-can-learn-a-lot-from-a-business-owner-who-closed-his-doors/feed/ 0 http://surveyadvantage.com/press/2010/01/26/yeh-but-what-about-survey-burnout-we-get-so-many/ http://surveyadvantage.com/press/2010/01/26/yeh-but-what-about-survey-burnout-we-get-so-many/#comments Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:11:32 +0000 Michael Casey http://surveyadvantage.com/press/?p=371 Recently there was a discussion between business owners who were concerned with surveying their customers and causing a negative reaction. They shared how much they hate getting surveys. In a Business to Consumer relationship many times we get pounded with surveys and get numb to them hitting “delete” as quick as we can. But, I would warn you not to generalize. Know thy customer!

Depends on the relationship one has with the specific supplier, how important that supplier is to their business, how long the survey it, and most importantly if the company responses quickly the first time the customer shares their thoughts. If I have a good ongoing relationship with the supplier as a partner, they are important to my well being, the survey is short and covers points most interesting to me and not you, and the company responds quickly maybe even call me, then I feel it is a way to get things changed and get a reaction. I will fill out surveys for them.

Example, if I have a partnership type relationship with my printer, rely on them to perform to drive marketing efforts, the survey takes a minute, and they call to discuss, then I DO NOT get survey burn-out.

If you are just another printer, who puts out average work with no skin in my game, the survey doesn’t respect my time, and you do nothing when I gave feedback of any kind in the past, then I hate to get your survey, wouldn’t take it, and WOULD get survey burnt out quickly. I would be burnt out the first time I got a survey and maybe even use it as an excuse to stop using you because I was thinking of moving on anyway and needed a reason.

We get so many surveys, but the ones I take are the ones where I respect their business, enjoy working with them, they know me, or I know they will do something with my information.

I would argue that burnout is an indication that the supplier is missing something in their relationship with the customer or they lack an understanding of how frequently to go to the well for feedback or how to approach customers for feedback.

]]> http://surveyadvantage.com/press/2010/01/26/yeh-but-what-about-survey-burnout-we-get-so-many/feed/ 1 http://surveyadvantage.com/press/2009/09/25/survey-advantage-shares-with-on-demand-e-newsletter-community-how-to-leverage-customer-comments-effectively-with-the-team/ http://surveyadvantage.com/press/2009/09/25/survey-advantage-shares-with-on-demand-e-newsletter-community-how-to-leverage-customer-comments-effectively-with-the-team/#comments Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:08:16 +0000 Michael Casey http://surveyadvantage.com/press/2009/09/25/survey-advantage-shares-with-on-demand-e-newsletter-community-how-to-leverage-customer-comments-effectively-with-the-team/ 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.

 

Read the article

]]> http://surveyadvantage.com/press/2009/09/25/survey-advantage-shares-with-on-demand-e-newsletter-community-how-to-leverage-customer-comments-effectively-with-the-team/feed/ 0