Don’t tell your customers what they want; ask them!

The modern-day consumer is quite demanding. They want to feel valued and want their voice to be heard. Many consumers long for a continuous interaction with the brands that they love. It is important to understand what your customers think about the products and the services that you provide and how you offer them.

Your customers have a lot to say, when did you last listen and allowed them to give their input? In this age of social media, brands are no longer getting away with poor service, products and controversial campaigns. If you make your consumers feel like they are part of your brand, they’ll be more likely to buy your products and even recommend them to others. In short, you’ll stay winning!

Know it all, or do we?

Enter brief from client or management…it’s time for a brainstorm and these sessions are often guided by guess work on what our target audience thinks and would like. The result? Cringe worthy marketing and advertising campaigns that consumers cannot relate to.

You end up spending a lot of money and time on failing strategies when it would have taken you minutes to get it right if only you involve your target audience in your decision-making process.

Enter Surveys…

Understanding the consumer’s points gives you a clear roadmap on what to products and services to offer, where to offer them and why.

Out of all the customer engagement arsenals that you have, surveys should take the head seat at the table. Nearly every company focuses on post-purchase and feedback surveys and neglect all other available opportunities to engage with customers. Let’s see some of these scenarios.

You have an idea…it’s brilliant- it has the potential to be the next big thing; the name probably sounds great too! You do a feasibility study-it’s profitable, right? Despite checking all the boxes, you might still not cut it for your target consumers. Instead of going off on a whim and implementing guess ideas, conducting a survey can help you complete the puzzle piece. Test your ideas long before they go to market; test them continually, iteratively, & quickly. Check in at each stage of the product development cycle, from early-stage concept and design to packaging, price, and go-to-market.

You’ve launched a new campaign in the market. The goal- awareness and sales. It exciting and you’ve spent millions in advertising, roadshows and influencers. What’s your return in investment? Save you sweat before those tense boardroom sessions where you have to justify how you spent your annual marketing budget. Use surveys to accurately & regularly measure consumer awareness for brands & communication so you can change your tact and messaging before your budget is far spent.

Use surveys to also stay on top of how your brand is perceived against your main competitors. Understanding attitudes towards your brand allows you to measure your place in the market and how best to improve it, providing a reliable competitor benchmark. Survey data is an excellent way to monitor bad experiences and identify patterns that might be problematic as early as possible.

Get an overview into your target audience’s purchase behaviour and attitudes to improve customers’ journey to purchase. With surveying, you can market to the right people at the right place and time. Armed with this information, you can now craft an experience that fits your customers preferences to ensure quick conversion and more revenue for your business.

Carefully crafted surveys can help you touch on each part of the consumer journey and help you understand what’s working and what isn’t for your clients. You also get to know why they don’t like it, what they’d actually prefer.

Surveys on the move

A fast-paced world demands that you have even faster turn-around times. Therefore, traditional survey methods are quickly becoming obsolete. While still effective, traditional survey methods are expensive and time consuming.

Smart survey options, like mobile surveys help you create custom questions for your customers and specifically target them to get actionable insights. Modern-day survey options are not only inexpensive but also save time.

To sum up

Your customers have a lot of untapped knowledge that can catapult your business to the next tier. Overlooking surveys is holding your company back and pulling you further into the dark.

Now that we’ve established that we’re checking in with our consumers first instead of shoving ideas down their throat, have you heard of our instant survey solution, OnePulse? Our self-serve platform that helps you speak to your customers and get answers in minutes. With over 60 behavioral and attitudinal points to choose from, you can be as granular with your consumer data as you’d like.

We would love to take you through our platform. Get in touch to book an intro/ live demo and learn more on how to conduct DIY surveys.