Chime School

Posts Tagged ‘feedback’

For any organization that wants to offer products or services that are focused and well targeted market research is essential. Business decisions that are based on good intelligence and good market research can minimise risk and pay dividends. By making market research part and parcel of the business process and conducting market research throughout the life cycle of a product or service market research will bring the following benefits:-

• Market research will help you better communicate – Your current customers experiences are a valuable information source, not only will they allow you to gauge how well you currently meet their expectations they can also tell you where you are getting things right and more importantly where you are getting things wrong. By consulting with the customer you not only show them that you care but the guesswork is taken out of customer services.
• Market research helps you identify opportunities – If a new service is planned and you want to know the attitudes people have then market research can help, not only by evaluating the potential for the new idea, but also by identify the areas where a marketing message needs to be fine tuned.
• Market research will minimise risk – Market research can identifying what is needed for a new service and product and ensure that the development of a product matches demand.
• Market research creates benchmarks and helps you measure your progress – You need to be able to measure so that you can ensure that your organization is always improving. Preliminary research may be able to identify problems in the service you intend to offer or in your product, regular market research will show if progress is being made and, if positive, will help motivate a team.

Considering the benefits that market research will bring to any organization it is perhaps surprising how few businesses invest sufficient resources to gather good intelligence that will help them improve business. Many may think that market research takes too much time and effort but that is just not the case anymore as through the power of the Internet online survey software is readily available and vital market research data can now be gathered in a quick, simple and cost effective manner.

By conducting effective market research what you can learn?

Know your customers – Market research will help you better understand your customers in a number of ways including demographic information such as their age, gender and geographic spread. The better you know your customer the easier it is to target your marketing and fine tune your product or service.

Know your target market – Who exactly are your existing customers and where do they live? Does your service or product appeal to specific age group? Do you know who your potential customers are and where they live?

Know your competition – Market Research will help you measure your service compared to others. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your organization and are you improving in the right areas?

Products and services – Do you have the products or services that people want? Are your products and services value for money? How do your services and products compare to those of your competitors? Can you, do you, should you deliver?

Ease of doing business – Do your customers find it easy to deal with you and when they visit your store and/or website do they find what they want? Is there sufficient advice and assistance on hand be it in the form of notices, leaflets or human assistance? Do you make it easy for people to buy from you? Are your staff properly trained, knowledgeable, helpful and available?

Marketing – Is your marketing reaching the right people and is the marketing message clear and effective. Which of the marketing channels that are available to you are effective and which ones are proving ineffective?

Do people understand your marketing message? Does your marketing material properly represent your brand? Do you use the correct advertising channels? Are you reaching your target audience?

With the power of the Internet it is now very easy to conduct market research using one of the many online survey software sites that make conducting surveys and collating good market research intelligence quick, easy and extremely cost effective.

What are the things you can learn by conducting effective market research?

Know your customers – Market research will help you better understand your customers in a number of ways including demographic information such as their age, gender and geographic spread. The better you know your customer the easier it is to target your marketing and fine tune your product or service.

Know your target market – Who exactly are your existing customers and where do they live? What age group does your service or product appeal to? Do you know who your potential customers are and where they live?

Know your competition – Market Research will help you measure your service compared to others. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your business and are you improving in the areas that customers demand?

Products and services – Do you have the products or services that people want? Are your products and services value for money? How do your products and services match up to that of your competitors? If you have a product can you deliver, do you deliver, should you deliver?

Ease of doing business – Do your customers find it easy to deal with you and when they visit your store and/or website do they find what they want? Is there adequate advice and assistance on hand? Do people find it easy to buy from you? Are your staff properly trained, helpful, knowledgeable and available?

Marketing – Is your marketing reaching the right people and is the marketing message clear and effective. Which are the least effective and what are the most effective marketing channels?

Is the marketing message understood? Does the marketing material properly represent your brand? Do you use the right advertising channels? Are you reaching the right people?

With the power of the Internet it is now very easy to conduct market research using one of the many online survey software sites that make conducting surveys and collating good market research intelligence quick, easy and extremely cost effective.

What are the things you can learn if you conduct effective market research?

Know your customers – Market research will help you better understand your customers in a number of ways including demographic information such as their age, gender and geographic spread. The better you know your customer the easier it is to fine tune your product or service towards the target market.

Know your target market – Who exactly are your existing customers and where do they live? Does your service or product appeal to specific age group? Do you know who your potential customers are and where they live?

Know your competition – Market Research will help you measure your service compared to others. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your business and are you improving in the areas that customers demand?

Products and services – Do you have the products or services that people want? Does your business represent value for money? How do your services and products compare to those of your competitors? Can you, do you, should you deliver?

Ease of doing business – Do your customers find it easy to deal with you and when they visit your store and/or website do they find what they want? Is there enough good advice and assistance on hand? Do people find it easy to buy from you? Are your employees properly trained, knowledgeable, helpful and available?

Marketing – Is your marketing reaching the right people and is the marketing message clear and effective. What marketing channels are available to you, which ones should you focus on and which, if any, should you drop?

Do the right people understand your marketing message? Does your marketing material properly reflect your brand? Do you advertise and promote using the right channels? Are you reaching your target audience?

With the power of the Internet it is now very easy to conduct market research using one of the many online survey software sites that make conducting surveys and collating good market research intelligence quick, easy and extremely cost effective.

There are many tools available to a webmaster to analyse website traffic allowing them to monitor the number of visitors, see what pages have been accessed and even the length of time each visitor spends accessing the website.

However, despite the vast amount of detailed information that is available what is missing is anything to tell the webmaster what the visitor was thinking. Did they dislike the site? Was the layout clear or confusing? Did they find it easy to navigate and maybe the most important thing, did they find the information they wanted?

A website may be generating sales but why are there some people that are visiting the website and not buying anything? Was it because they didn’t like what the product or service were or was it that they couldn’t find what it was that they wanted?

Using online surveys webmasters have a simple and accurate method of answering these types of questions. Direct feedback from the website visitor is straight from the horse’s mouth, no longer is there the need to guess, simply ask each visitor how they found the site and if they were able to find what they were looking for.

With an online survey webmasters can find out:-

• How often do people visit the website?
• How did they arrive at the website?
• Is it for business or pleasure that they are interested in the website?
• Was the information they were looking for found on the website?
• How easy was it for them to navigate the website?
• Would they recommend the website?

A good website survey will be brief and will gather information that once analysed will provide valuable information to help improve the website.

Another alternative to a traditional survey is to embed one or two survey questions within the website after specific procedures. One example would be to ask visitors at the end of the registration process if they found the procedure quick and easy; another example would be after ordering an item the customer could be asked if they found the ordering procedure and payment methods to their liking. To ensure that the questions don’t become repetitive to regular visitors the website can be programmed so that the questions are only asked once per registered user.

Website surveys take the mystery out of working out what visitors think of a website and using Online Survey Software they are quick and easy to design and once implemented will really become the webmaster’s assistant.

To see a sample website survey please follow the link: Sample Website Survey

Left alone it doesn’t take long for a building with a single broken window to rapidly become a building with many broken windows. Resolving problems when they are small will prevent them from developing into larger problems.

The same is true when considering the level of employee satisfaction. Dissatisfaction can spread rapidly throughout an organization and before you know it you can have morale problems that can be hard to resolve.

To ensure that your employees are satisfied you need to appreciate any day to day concerns that they may have and deal with them quickly. Keeping the initiative is really important and the secret is that it is better to give a little and often.

This turns out be a vicious circle. Fixing problems when they are small is also when they are at their cheapest to fix. Most employees would prefer their management to take the initiative with any prompting and if the do management can then operate from a strong position. Staff like strong, confident management and this approach generates respect not least because someone has taken the time to understand some of the employees’ issues.

Compare that with those managers who are out of touch. If they are late in addressing problems they are always on the defensive, having to concede to demands they run the risk of losing credibility which in turn can lead to having to agree to less reasonable demands. It is neither big nor clever.

The question is how one goes about monitoring the morale of a company without throwing money at the problem and without the luxury of having spare time?

An online employee survey would appear to offer the perfect solution. They offer a quick, easy and cost effective solution. Surveys can be written and deployed in seconds, using email, web links and social networks they cost nothing to disseminate and the results are collated and displayed in real time.

A corporate intranet is the ideal delivery platform.

By linking through to an online survey website a company can regularly conduct surveys so they become part and parcel of the daily operations.

With an online survey’s ability to produce results in real-time the mood of the employees can rapidly be gauged and concerns highlighted both on a collective and individual level.

Organizations can use survey results to highlight problem areas and then use follow-up surveys to target specific concerns. With good information managers are able to get to the root of specific problems and prepare a considered response.

A major advantage of regular surveys is that they allow companies to address relatively small problems in a timely manner and avoid ‘the straw that broke the camels back’ syndrome where what might be seen as a insignificant incident explodes into a torrent of pent up anger.

The majority of employees appreciate being consulted, asking their opinion is not a sign of weak management but an indicator of good decision making.

It’s unusual to find, but there it is – sometimes management problems can be solved with something that is quick, easy and won’t break the bank.

If you conduct effective market research what are the things you can learn?

Know your customers – Market research will help you better understand your customers in a number of ways including demographic information such as their age, gender and geographic spread. The better you know your customer the easier it is to target your marketing and fine tune your product or service.

Know your target market – Who exactly are your existing customers and where do they live? Does your service or product appeal to specific age group? Do you know who your potential customers are and where they live?

Know your competition – Market Research will help you measure your service compared to others. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your business and are you improving in the areas that customers demand?

Products and services – Do you have the products or services that people want? Is what you offer value for money? How do your products and services compare to those of your competitors? If you have a product can you, do you, should you deliver directly to your customer?

Ease of doing business – Do your customers find it easy to deal with you and when they visit your store and/or website do they find what they want? Is there adequate advice and assistance on hand? Do people find it easy to buy from you? Are your staff properly trained, helpful, knowledgeable and available?

Marketing – Is your marketing reaching the right people and is the marketing message clear and effective. Which of the marketing channels that are available to you are effective and which ones are proving ineffective?

Do people correctly understand your marketing message? Does your marketing properly embody your brand? Do you advertise and promote using the right channels? Are you reaching your target audience?

With the power of the Internet it is now very easy to conduct market research using one of the many online survey software sites that make conducting surveys and collating good market research intelligence quick, easy and extremely cost effective.

What will conducting effective market research teach you?

Know your customers – Market research will help you better understand your customers in a number of ways including demographic information such as their age, gender and geographic spread. The better you know your customer the easier it is to target your marketing and fine tune your product or service.

Know your target market – Who exactly are your existing customers and where do they live? What age group does your service or product appeal to? Who are your potential customers and where do they live?

Know your competition – Market Research will help you measure your service compared to others. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your organization and are you improving in the right areas?

Products and services – Do you have the products or services that people want? Do you represent value for money? How do your company’s products and services compare to those of your competitors? If you have a product can you deliver, do you deliver, should you deliver?

Ease of doing business – Do your customers find it easy to deal with you and when they visit your store and/or website do they find what they want? Is there enough good advice and assistance on hand? Do you make it easy for your customers to buy? Are all your staff properly trained, knowledgeable, helpful and available?

Marketing – Is your marketing reaching the right people and is the marketing message clear and effective. Which of the marketing channels that are available to you are effective and which ones are proving ineffective?

Do people understand your marketing message? Does your marketing material properly reflect your brand? Do you use the right advertising and promotion channels? Are you reaching the right people?

With the power of the Internet it is now very easy to conduct market research using one of the many online survey software sites that make conducting surveys and collating good market research intelligence quick, easy and extremely cost effective.

The small time promoter has to work hard and on a shoestring to get an audience of a few hundred people to fill a venue. Flyers, word-of-mouth and social networks are just some of the tools promoters use to fill small venues or club nights. It is not easy building up a loyal following from scratch. It can take a great deal of effort to attract enough people to fill even the smallest of venues and that effort should not be wasted and the actual event used to establish a relationship with the audience that will continue beyond the end of the evening.

With a little thought and small outlay online surveys can be used to provide the promoter with valuable feedback and the opportunity to engage in further contact with the audience. Using online Survey Software a promoter can now quickly and easily create an online survey.

With an online survey a promoter can find out exactly:-

• who attended;
• what persuaded them;
• what they thought of the event;
• would they expect to attend again;
• would they recommend future events to their friends.

One way to ensure a good response is to have a supply of business sized cards that are marked clearly with a slogan like “Feedback”, “Everyone’s a critic”, “What do you think”. On each card a web address will point either directly to the survey or to a website where a link to the survey can be placed. Cards can be issued at the door with the tickets, or handed out among the crowd and if they are made the size of business cards they will be small enough to be slipped into a pocket, purse or wallet. A small incentive such as a chance to win a free guest pass for a future event, a signed CD or T shirt may improve the response rate.

Using the results from online surveys the promoter is able to:

• Obtain a profile of the audience
• Gauge the overall success of the event;
• Measure the effectiveness of different promotion;
• Receive feedback on the venue and facilities;
• Receive feedback on the act;
• Promote on a one on one basis;
• Build a targeted database for future events;
• Build a loyal audience;
• Link to merchandise and other promotions.

It takes considering effort to promote an event and only a little extra effort to use online surveys to encourage further contact and reap a number of short and long term benefits that contact will bring.

The following example shows the feedback that could be used for a breaking band. Not only does the process collate good feedback it also continues to promote the band, their CDs, downloads and gives the opportunity to encourage further contact.

Sample Feedback Survey

To view the summary results of the survey: Sample Survey Results

There are many tools available to a webmaster to analyse website traffic, some free like Google’s Analytics that will allow them to monitor the number of visitors, see what pages have been accessed and the length of time visitors have spent accessing the website and a whole lot more.

However, despite the vast amount of detailed information that can be collected what will always be missing is information that will tell the webmaster exactly what the visitor was thinking. Did they like the site? Was the layout clear or confusing? Was navigating the website easy and did they find the information they wanted?

A website may be generating sales but why are there some people that are visiting the website and not buying anything? Was the reason because they didn’t like what was being offered, or was it that they couldn’t find what they wanted even though it was there?

Using web based surveys webmasters have a simple and accurate method of answering these types of questions. Direct feedback from the website visitors cuts to the chase, there is no longer any need to guess, just ask the visitors directly how they arrived at the site and if they were able to find what they were looking for.

With an online survey webmasters can find out:-

• How often do people visit the website?
• How did they arrive at the website?
• Are they interested in the website for business or pleasure?
• Were they able to find the information they were looking for?
• How easy was it for them to navigate the website?
• Would they recommend the website to their friends and/or colleagues?

A good website survey will be short and to the point and gather good intelligence that once analysed will help improve the website.

An alternative to a more traditional customer survey would be to ask just one or two questions at strategic points. For example at the end of the registration process the visitor can be asked if they found the procedure quick and easy; after ordering an item they could be asked if they found the ordering procedure and payment methods to their liking. To ensure that the questions don’t become repetitive to regular visitors the website can be programmed so that the questions are only asked once per registered user.

Website surveys take the mystery out of working out what visitors think of a website and using Online Survey Software they are quick and easy to design and once implemented will really become the webmaster’s assistant.

To see a sample website survey please follow the link: Sample Website Survey