Digital surveys for the services industry

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well, the product or service sells itself.” - Peter Drucker

When a business has a unique product idea – something that can influence the minds and purchase decisions of customers, or if it conceptualises a service that no one else is offering, it can be exciting to just jump into the production/delivery process.
However, the realities of the business world are not so smooth. Before the enterprise shifts into the next gear, it must check whether there is actually a market for its new product or service. It should also determine the degree of modifications essential to improve the offering before the actual launch. In short, it must conduct market research.
Businesses, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs) bypass market research because they think it will be expensive and will affect their overall costs of product development. However, thanks to customisable digital surveys, knowing a market has now become easier and more budget-friendly.
With a digital survey, you can not only know the pain points and preferences of your customers better, but also gauge market trends, buyer demographics and their perception of your competitors’ offerings.
You can solicit feedback on your existing products and services to make constant improvements. On the proverbial 0-10 scale, it is always exciting to see the 9 and 10 ratings given by customers in a survey. However, your organisation can certainly learn more from its 0 to 6 ratings than those towards the high-end of the scale. It will help to identify the key drivers of discontent and opportunities to improve satisfaction.
While digital surveys are direct sources of information, you must ask the right question in the right way to get actionable insights. It is also advisable to conduct them in multiple languages to cover a wide customer base.

Here are some tips to prepare outcome-focused customer surveys:

Keep them simple and short

Simplicity and brevity are the hallmarks of successful surveys and opinion polls.
Using the online medium, you may be reaching out to people who are busy at their work. It is, therefore, good to make it easy for them to access the content and answer the questions in the shortest possible time. Design a plain, easy-to-understand questionnaire with straightforward and precise questions. If your surveying style is complex, it can confuse and even irk respondents, due to which they will either not answer some questions or give vague answers.
A lengthy survey is likely to leave you with a high abandonment rate. When you want people to respond enthusiastically, restrict the number of questions to 20 or fewer. Ideally, customers should not take more than seven minutes to complete the questionnaire.

Avoid ‘yes-no’ questions

Polar questions with just two possible answers – in the affirmative and negative – do not add much value to your digital surveys. By asking such yes-no questions, you do not give the respondents a chance to express the views that matter in your business decisions.
The objective of a well-designed digital survey is to get into customers’ minds and comprehend their expectations. It is, therefore, better to ask multiple-choice questions.

As an example, instead of asking …

Would you like to buy more orange juice?
a) Yes      b) No
… It is better to ask

Which of these juices would you like to buy more of?
a) Orange
b) Mango
c) Apple d) Any other – please specify

Yes, multiple-choice questions are also close-ended. However, they allow respondents to choose from a variety of options, and at times, the aggregate of answers may surprise your product research and marketing team. Where you seek additional information, it is good to include ‘Any other – please specify’ as a choice.

Add one or two open-ended questions towards the end

Open-ended questions need the survey participant to add a short, individualised opinion about something. It gives your customers the liberty to write out whatever they feel about your product or services without getting restricted by the choice of answers.

Here’s an example:

What else would you like to mention about your stay at our hotel?

When asking such questions, it is good to keep a character limit; else some respondents can fluster you with unreasonable or meaningless responses. With restricted space, they will only offer the opinion that is essential.

To conclude, successful business launches start with getting to know your target market and what it requires. Digital surveys are the simplest tools to reach your customers and read their mind. They also enable you to evaluate the success of products and services that you already offer and the ones you want to upgrade.

The suite of marketing solutions at Tata Tele Business Services includes a flexible feedback management platform that enables businesses to conduct digital surveys on a unified application via websites, e-mails and SMS applications. Companies can design multi-lingual and multi-modal surveys. Instant analytics help the surveyors review the responses and leverage them in their business decisions.

To know more about our Digital Survey solution, please download the brochure at https://www.tatateleservices.com/downloads/products/resources/brochure/digital-survey.pdf.