7 Ways Surveys Will Get Your Business to Grow

Could your business be growing any faster? Is your marketing optimized? Are your customers truly happy? There’s only one-way to find out – feedback surveys. In the competitive markets of today, it’s no longer just about your service or product, but about the experience you provide. The world’s leading businesses live by this belief.

To deliver exceptional experience, it’s important to know your audience. That’s where surveys come into the picture. Bridge the gap between your business and your customers using carefully designed, thoughtful surveys. Here is how they will help grow your business:

1. Increase Retention and Loyalty

Loyalty doesn’t just mean repeat customers. Customer loyalty refers to customers who won’t easily switch businesses, even when confronted with a lucrative price advantage.

Rapid customer churn is the death knell for any business. Surveys can help prevent that. They help you communicate with your customers, understand their preferences, and identify the experience gaps in your current customer centric ecosystem.

The more you know, the more you can improve. By taking customer feedback into account and putting it in action, you can rapidly increase customer retention and loyalty. Customers that know you value their opinion are more likely to stick around in the long run.

1. Validate Your Ideas

When you’re investing in new product ideas and services, it’s best to have them validated before it’s too late.

So how do you do that? You guessed it right – surveys are the key. By approaching your target audience asking if this is a product they’d be interested in, you’ll get an honest answer. There is nothing worse than investing money into a project that doesn’t pan out.

So, the more insight you get, the better your chances of creating and delivering a product that will be a success.

1. Understand Customer Satisfaction

Having a low churn rate is always great, but that doesn’t always tell you how satisfied your customers are. Customers might stay with you for several reasons (not just loyalty).

Whatever the reason may be, your customers would be a lot more valuable if they were loyal. This is because they won’t just keep coming back to you, but they would also actively recommend your products!

Find out how satisfied they are and what obstacles they face when doing business with you. By working on this feedback, not only will your current customers feel valued, but you will also be able to create a customer experience that inspires loyalty for new customers.

1. Know Your Audience

It’s one thing to have a simple overview of who your audience is, but it’s quite another to get to know them.

Strive to know your audience beyond their interaction with your business. Ask about their interests, look, into which platforms they use most frequently, learn about their hobbies, and more. When your audience becomes more concrete, you open new opportunities for your business.

Perhaps you realize that a majority of them follow cooking blogs. While this may have nothing to do with your business, advertising on cooking blogs might open up new avenues of marketing for you!

Alternately, you might discover new audience segments altogether!

1. Boost Engagement

At the heart of it, we are all competitive. Do you remember how popular those Buzzfeed quizzes got? That’s exactly what surveys, quizzes, and assessment tools can help you achieve. Engage your audience by asking quick questions, taking a survey, and in the process getting to know inane details about their lives.

The more engaged your customer is the more recall value your brand will have – so why miss out?

1. Give Customers a Sense of Ownership

Customers that have a sense of ownership over a business are more likely to stay loyal.

Now I’m not asking you to become a publicly listed company, but rather, involve your customers in basic decision making.

Thinking about rolling out a new look and feel for your website? Take a poll and ask customers which is better.

Working on a new logo? Put the options up for a vote and see which your customers prefer.

Adding in some new features? Ask your audience what they are looking forward to the most.

When your audience notices that they have a say in the matter and that you are taking popular vote into account, they automatically feel a sense of ownership in your business.

Their voice matters.

And this increases loyalty as well!

1. Connect with your Employees

The best use of survey tools is to get to know the force behind the curtains – your employees. Employees are a company’s most valuable assets, and engaged employees are all the more valuable. They are more productive and proactive, and also a lot more loyal.

As any customer experience expert will attest, engaged employees also lead to better CX.

So, if there’s one thing you need to look into, it’s making sure your employees are happy – and surveys will help you achieve that. Distribute anonymous surveys to get the most honest answers about your workplace atmosphere, and ensure that your employees have a stress-free environment to grow and contribute in.

Surveys are a great way to capture a holistic overview of mass audience feedback. They close the gap between a business and its customers; help managers connect with their employees, and fuel strategic decisions.

Surveys spur the growth of major companies, but just any survey isn’t the answer. It’s essential to mention here that there are some things to keep in mind.

• Ask the right questions. Regardless of your surveys’ goal, your audience will only answer the questions you ask, so be sure to ask the right questions. For example, instead of asking what you can do better, ask your audience what the ideal experience would be like. Instead of knowing just one step you can take, you’ll be able to create a vision/goal.

• Analytics are the true force. You have the answers rolling in, but without powerful analytics you will never be able to read between the lines. So, employ tools that help you dissect what your audience is really saying, and not just plot graphs. Natural Language Processing Analytics are essential for open-ended questions to understand the overarching sentiment being expressed.

• Too many surveys are a detriment. Yes, surveys are a great way to connect, but too many is spamming. Be careful about how you send out your surveys, and always take a look at it from the audience’s standpoint as well. Is that survey about weekend plans really necessary?

On the whole, online surveys are a great tool for businesses to know their audience and truly boost their growth. So, if you aren’t already taking advantage of this nifty technological marvel, it’s time to get started!