Questionnaires provide an excellent way of getting feedback from your customers because everyone recognises them and is used to filling them in. You can use the feedback from a well-designed questionnaire to improve your business procedures and your marketing. A questionnaire-based survey should be conducted on your customers at least once a year. It’s likely that over time your customer base will change, so you must keep up to date with the profile of your most common type of customer.
The value of questionnaires
The more you know about how your customers feel about your business, the better placed you are to make improvements. The feedback from questionnaires can therefore provide you with a strong competitive advantage over your competitors, allowing you to understand the real needs of your customers or clients and adapt your business appropriately.
The response to the questions you ask can often be quite unexpected and revealing, and can alert you to changes you must make to keep your customers satisfied.
For example, you might think that your service level is excellent, but your customers feel it is below standard.
Defining your objectives
Your first task is to decide what information you want from the questionnaire and then design the form to make sure the questions are asked properly, and the information is accurate, relevant and useful to you.
For example, you might want answers to such questions as:
- Would customers still use us if we increased prices?
- Are the times we are open or available suitable to the majority?
- Would customers use a freephone number service?
- How do most new customers actually find out about us?
- Did that advertising campaign work or not?
- Are we as polite and courteous to our customers as we think?
Are there any other products or services that the customers would like us to provide, that we have not thought of yet?
Is there anything we can do to improve our business? The list is endless.