Category Archives: customer research

This series consists of resources, tips and strategies to help readers measure customer preferences and perceived value including, product, brand or experience.

How to Make the Most of Your Customer Service Data

Posted on August 7, 2012 by | Leave a comment
Legendary management expert Peter Drucker once said “what’s measured improves.”  This rings particularly strong for customer service, but you also have to know what to measure if you want to realize improvement.

This week, research firm Software Advice sat down with Zendesk Product Marketing Vice President JD Peterson to get his thoughts on how you tackle this dilemma. His company is one of the largest customer support software vendors, serving more than 20,0000 companies.
Peterson started the conversation with tips for metrics and ratios. Above all, he said companies should look at customer satisfaction. How satisfied is that person with the resolution they received? For this, you need to ensure you have a means to collect this information, like a voice or email survey. Next, he recommended factors that contribute to that score, such as first human response and time to resolution.
Call deflection is also a really important metric for cost control. To measure those successes, he recommended a self-service views to ticket volume ratio.
Increasingly customer service, marketing and sales break out of their silos to align strategies. Data is a great way to do this. He recommended starting with a sales CRM and customer service software integration. This way, customer service agents can see whether or not that person is engaged in an active sales cycle. Likewise, marketing and sales can gauge customer sentiment before they send out a big campaign.
For all of this data collection and analysis to really work, companies should benchmark their performance against peers and competitors. He suggested you look at others in the same industry, location and company size.
This post was contributed by Ashley Furness, CRM Analyst with Software Advice

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How to Reach a Larger Audience with your Surveys

Posted on July 25, 2012 by | 1 Comment

One of the key components of an effective survey tool is assuring you have quality sample to survey.  When you’re surveying your customers — that’s a no brainer – but what if you want to do a branding survey or a blind study with a specific, targeted audience?

To get some answers, I talked to Rudly Raphael who runs qSample, the data collection division of Survey Analytics and QuestionPro.

qSample was created as a result of numerous requests from customers for quality sample pools. Just as QuestionPro creates tools that are intuitive and easy for its customers, qSample follows suit by automating and simplifying the sample process. One way qSample achieves this is through a thorough determination of whether a panel or a sample is right for each survey.

A survey panel is a pre-recruited community of individuals who share certain characteristics in common. Examples include a panel of consumers or its decision makers or gamers. A sample is a subset of that population. For example, a client may wish to conduct a survey with 500 casual gamers from qSample’s gamer panel. Think of the panel as the overall, and the sample a smaller part of the whole.

People not familiar with the survey process often use panel and sample interchangeably. There is no “hard and fast” rule about when to use a sample as opposed to a panel. It depends more on the survey creator and from where do they want their sample to come. For example, does the surveyor want the names to come from a panel, list provider, industry publication, or random sample.

A well-recruited and maintained panel can provide better data quality than any methodology available. Respondents can complete surveys at their convenience and the data can be collected in less than 24 hours. Online panels also offer more data quality control. More than 80% of the U.S. population is currently online. This figure grows globally. As such, this will soon become the default data collection methodology of choice.

As one begins to construct a survey, it is crucial to ask the company providing the data certain questions to assure the sample quality. Sample questions include

  • How is the panel recruited?
  • What systems do they have in place to counter panel attrition?
  • How do they incentivize their members?
  • What is the make up of the panel?

Knowing the difference between a panel and a sample – and what’s best for the survey at hand – is a critical component for conducting effective online surveys. Companies like qSample exist to help users assure sample quality. Don’t make the mistake of constructing a survey when the respondents may not be the right people to give the answers.

 

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How to Design a Survey People Will Love to Take

Posted on June 26, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Creating a survey in QuestionPro is really easy.  But designing a survey that people will complete is easier said than done.  In this article, I’m going to combine some strategies for designing a great survey, and then show you how to implement them inside of QuestionPro.

If you follow my lead while reading this article, you could have a killer survey designed and ready to go by the time you’re done reading.

What’s the intention of your survey

Before you log into QuestionPro’s powerful online survey tool, take a few minutes to lay out your strategy.  The last thing you want is to take the time to create and distribute a survey – and then get garbage for information that comes back.

What’s the purpose of your survey?  To answer this question, write down what decision you’re trying to make.  For example;

“Should I launch this new product?” — This is a common marketing decision and one where getting some feedback could really help you make a good decision.  Now consider what all the parameters are of your decision :

  • I will launch this product if I can sell 10,000 in a year
  • I will be profitable if I can charge $139 for it
  • I can save money by selling online

These are just a few, but let’s use this as a starting point for our survey.

Log into your QuestionPro Account (if you don’t have one yet, you can start a FREE Trial account today.

The first thing you’ll notice is that there is a NEW FEATURE there to greet you.  Today, the new feature is a “Slider” question type.  If you have the time, it’s a good idea to click and take a quick tour of the new feature.  QuestionPro is always updating features, so you’ll want to take a quick peek.

In this case, I’m thinking that I NEVER use a “slider” question type and given what I’m working on – I’m going to give it a try.

Click on the “Create Survey” button to get started

You’ll notice that you have choices – you can create a new survey from scratch, copy a template from our survey and question or import a survey from a word document.  I’m going to create a survey from scratch.

Give your survey a name — this name will ultimately be part of the custom URL that is given to your survey

Choose a layout -  QuestionPro has dozens of pre-designed templates to choose from and each one can be customized or, if you’ve got the HTML skills, you can design your own.

Choose social networking sites – if you want to share it with your community

QuestionPro gives your respondents the ability to connect with Facebook.  This is a terrific feature that can drive your survey viral as well as help you collect valuable information about your respondent.

Write a friendly introduction

The first “Question” you’ll want to add will be some introductory text — this is the first thing that your respondents will see.   QuestionPro has already created some copy that you can use and customize, but why not write your own and personalize the experience for your audience?

DON’T make your introductory text too long or boring.

DO explain to the respondent what the purpose of the survey is – go ahead, tell them what you’re trying to decide and how their honest response will help

DO make the copy fun and friendly – treat this as a face-to-face conversation , even though it’s online.

Creating questions

Now you are ready to start your survey.  Click on add a question and then just follow along with the pop-up menu prompts.  QuestionPro will easily guide you through the process as you are going along.

Creating survey questions in QuestionPro is super fast and easy.  Just click and add.  Each of the pop up windows have examples of the questions that you can use — and don’t forget to explore all the different question types so that you can find the one that will give you the best information and allow the respondent to more clearly represent their opinion or intention.

Structuring the survey

Start your survey with some basic qualifying questions:

Do you use widgets? (yes/No)  - here you can actually create a logic and branching question.  If the respondent answers “no” — that they don’t use widgets, you can end the survey and thank them for their time

Notice how the logic shows up right on the screen – now you can double check your logic as you go through the survey – no more clicking around.

Now create the next series of questions that will help you make your decisions:

Now repeat this process until you have all your questions completed.

DON’T create more than 5 questions.  You do not want your respondent to spend any more than a minute or two on your survey.  The longer your survey, the LOWER the response rate.

DO use question types that include sliders and graphics to more fully engage the reader.

Launch your survey

Now you’re ready to launch that survey.  You have lots of options

For an anonymous survey – you can simply send the URL anywhere as a link (email, social media, etc).

You can also upload a list of emails to send customized invitations through the QuestionPro platform.

Web site intercept is another terrific way to have ongoing feedback.

Don’t wait

If you’ve been holding off on creating your online survey — don’t.  I hope this article shows you how fast and easy it is to get to a decision with some data.

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Posted in customer research, QuestionPro, Research Tools and Apps

Scholarly Research Is Not What It Used to Be

Posted on May 28, 2012 by | 1 Comment

It used to be that the only reputable research was academic studies that involved hidden research methods and concealing of findings until published later in scholarly journals. With many universities having a “publish or parish” mentality, faculty and scholars took careful steps to conceal research in desk drawers promoting a very un-collaborative environment.

However, research is changing, and the ability to search and share data and information is quite different as other platforms are helping scholars organize and navigate data. One such platform is Mendeley, who is changing the world of research for the better.

Mendeley is one of the world’s largest research collaboration platforms, used by more than 1.6 million researchers worldwide. It is a free reference manager and academic social network that helps its users organize research, collaborate online and discover new research trends.

The online community provides real-time statistics, trends by research area, and recommendations for related research based on its crowd-sourced database of approximately 250 million research documents. The company gives control of research data back to the community in an effort to make research more collaborative, open, and efficient.

Mendeley has one of the largest research databases in the world and now they are using the power of crowdsourcing, which involves outsourcing tasks to groups of undefined online users, to connect people with similar interests and highlight and recommends related papers for reading that might have been missed.

Its crowdsourcing research mentality is now producing real-time data on content usage and providing brand new insights into how academics collect, read, share, and annotate research. What is this significant and how does it relate to traditional academic research? This new process of research presents a possible future for academic research where the focus is on collective knowledge. They are changing the way the research process occurs and are opening the doors of academic data to all researchers.

In addition, apps built using Mendeley’s crowdsourced data are providing a greater understanding of content consumption and new metrics that measure the impact of research.

It is an exciting time when research – especially that which is academic in nature – has found a new way to reach people and is more accessible to all interested parties. The new method is a great compliment to traditional survey research, both online and offline. It will be interesting to see how universities and research institutions respond to Mendeley’s successful crowdsourcing approach when conducing research in the near future.

 

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Posted in customer research, Essay

What FedEx Taught Us About the Power of Survey Research

Posted on May 23, 2012 by | 2 Comments

We at QuestionPro often talk about online surveys as helpful tools to gauge customer satisfaction and test new trends. Another great way to use online surveys is to ascertain whether marketing efforts are increasing sales and brand awareness. A great example of this type of survey is FedEx Office’s recently released “What’s Your Sign?” survey.

 

The FedEx study surveyed 1,000 consumers to gauge their opinions on whether there is a connection between small business signage and positive consumer action, including the impact a sign has on consumer intent to visit a store, make a purchase and more. The survey results are good news for small businesses that use attractive signs to promote their stores.

 

Key findings include the following.

 

  • Almost seven in ten (68%) American consumers have actually purchased a product or service because a sign caught their eye.

 

  • Almost eight in 10 (76%) consumers have entered a store simply because its sign caught their interest. In addition, 75% of those consumers will tell someone else about the store

 

  • Three out of four consumers (75%) said they have told someone about a store based simply on its signage.

 

  • Seventy-nine percent of shoppers claimed to have remembered the business solely from the signs. What’s also interesting is if the signage was impressive, 51% of consumers later looked up the store online.

 

The survey found that certain genders and age groups are more likely to be swayed by store signage, especially women and young customers. Two in five females – or 42% – say they would enter a store based only upon the signage, even if they never visited the store previously (compared to only 31% of male shoppers). This finding may be due to the fact that women are attracted to features such as creativity and color.

 

From a survey research perspective, what is valuable about FedEx’s study is the fact that survey that reached 1,000 people can produce extremely valuable and telling results that can then be applied to retail stores and businesses across the country. It is a great lesson in the power of survey research and what you can learn through simple and well-designed online surveys.

 

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Ways to Use Data Segmentation in the Survey Process

Posted on May 9, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Data segmentation is one of the most useful tools when creating online surveys. The process helps your business identify opportunities for growth, target communication toward specific audiences, and reduce costs from having multiple survey campaigns. QuestionPro has different types of data segmentation grouping options available, including Custom Variable Based and Time Based. Lets look at data segmentation and what it can do for your survey research.

Segmentation lets you sort responses based on parameters such as question responses, custom variables or time frames. You can access the data segmentation tool within QuestionPro by clicking through Surveys – Reports – Advanced – Analysis – Grouping/Segmentation. A maximum of ten segments at a time are allowed.

Once the segmentation is set up, you can add filters to the data segments to allow for analyzing multiple pieces of data. For example, you create one group where the selection criteria chooses “male,” and the second group where the selection criteria selects “female.” A benefit of QuestionPro’s system is that you do not need to create the segments before the survey commences. In fact, the segments may be created anytime during the data collection because it is independent of the process.

Custom Variable Based Grouping

QuestionPro allows you to create custom variable segmentation based on the following groups: email list code, external reference variable, and custom variables. An email list code is exactly that – the email list you use to end out the email survey. It is easy to aggregate custom variables simply by separating the data values with commas.

Time Based Grouping

A useful way to segment data is through time-based filters, which allows you to analyze your data based on a particular time frame (e.g. when the survey was completed). Time based grouping can be set up at any point during the data collection process. Simply go to Surveys – Reports – Advanced Analysis – Grouping/Segmentation. Clicking on the “new data segment” button lets you name the groups and select the data segment. A helpful feature of QuestionPro’s time based grouping is you can account for different time zones.

Data segmentation can be one of the most helpful tools for analyzing your survey data and getting the most out of the process. The more you can break down the data into categories and understand the responses, the better your information will be and you will be prepared to tackle your businesses’ challenged armed with the most comprehensive information.

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Posted in Best Practice, customer research, QuestionPro, Research Tools and Apps

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How to Integrate External Variables Into Your Survey

Posted on May 7, 2012 by | 1 Comment

External variables are useful tools that will make your survey even more powerful. Specifically, the variables are additional information about your customers or survey respondents that is then integrated within the survey. This can result in even more accurate responses.

QuestionPro makes it easy to include external (or custom, as it is also known) variables into your survey creation. Lets take a look at custom variables and how they are best used.

External variables may be used in the Questions / Answer Options on the survey as well as within the email invitation to take the survey. Within the QuestionPro system, the external variables are stored with the Respondents Response. You can upload the information from an Excel spreadsheet or CSV file with up to 255 custom variables with up to 128 characters each.

How to Insert External Variables

When you use the QuestionPro Email Management tool, you can upload the variables with each person’s email address. If you are not using our email management program, you can still use external variables. You will simply correspond the information via the survey URL.

How External Variables Used for Analysis

You can conduct survey analysis with external variables using the Grouping option. For example if you have uploaded the department as an external variable. Once that is done, you can set up groups for each department and run analysis for the various departments. The advantage of this is the ability to hone the results and test specific categories for data patterns.

How External Variables Work with Dynamic Replacement

QuestionPro’s Dynamic Replacement option allows you to replace random text with dynamic data. How does this relate to external variables? The variables/data stored in the External Variables can be used for the dynamic replacement and pre-population.

Limitations of External Variables

Like many components of survey research, there are some limitations to external variables. First, each variable can only store up to 64 characters. Second, multi-lingual characters may not be saved in external variable fields. Therefore it’s probably best to stick with English characters. Third, only alphanumeric characters work as variable fields. As such, the pound or hash symbol (#) cannot be used. We also recommend you not use commas and quotation marks as variables.

External variables are another tool that can be used to better segment your data and give you meaningful online survey results. QuestionPro’s survey software allows you to easily insert these variables into the survey as well as your email template. Yet another tool to ensure you get the most out of your online survey process.

 

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Posted in Best Practice, customer research, QuestionPro, Research Tools and Apps

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How Mobile Surveys Can Help You Get Reponses

Posted on April 30, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Survey research is not what it used to be. And chances are, it will continue to evolve with the popularity of smart phones, iPads and the like. In fact, 46% of Americans are using smart phones. So why not use this technology to help enhance your survey response rates and data gathering techniques?

QuestionPro has debuted a new online survey tool to help you conduct surveys using smart phones and iPads, and even when there is no connection to the Internet. SurveyPocket is a mobile survey application that allows for the gathering of survey data in the field by using a smart phone or iPad as the data-gathering equipment piece. The application is an innovative tool that helps you collect and store data – with or without a wireless connection.

What is the best application for SurveyPocket?

On-site Surveys – Using mobile devices, you can send out a team of interviewers to an event where you gather the survey responses live. Examples of these include prospect information gathering at trade shows, customer satisfaction surveys at movies or entertainment venues, and political exit polls.

Training and Evaluations – Use SurveyPocket to collect feedback after a training session or workshop. Gathering the data at the heel of the session will ensure the most accurate responses.

Personal Mall Intercept Survey – Mall intercept surveys are used to reach a large segment of the population. Given that approximately 2/3 of U.S. households shop at a mall during any given two-week period, using SurveyPocket for mall intercept surveys is a great way to gather information from the masses.

SurveyPocket Features

There are several features that make SurveyPocket a great mobile survey tool, including …

  • Has the ability to collect GPS data of where the survey was administered.
  • Has the ability to collect the unique smart phone UID if used on smart phones.
  • Has the ability to collect response information until the smart phone or iPad is connected to the Internet, at which point it will then upload the data.
  • It has a simple UI so training is kept to a minimum.
  • The ability to cope with any language required.
  • The ability to work on iPhones, Android, and iPads.

Another great feature of SurveyPocket is it works exclusively with the SurveyAnalytics survey platform.

Do not limit yourself to the old ways of collecting survey data. If you are collecting data in the field, consider QuestionPro’s SurveyPocket as a way of gathering accurate data quickly and effectively, without the hassle of being wired in.

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Using Trend Analysis to Track Your Customer Satisfaction Progress

Posted on April 4, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Customer satisfaction is the most common use for online surveys.  But analyzing your results to see what kind of progress you’ve made can get rather hairy and cumbersome.

If that sounds like YOU, then you’re going to love the trend analysis feature inside of QuestionPro.

How to get started

Don’t let the technical sounding phrase “trend analysis” freak you out.  All you have to do it create a single survey with a standard set of questions.  You’ll want to make sure that your survey is rather short with no more than five questions.

Here are a few ideas for questions you might consider:

  1. What transaction did you just complete? (use a multiple choice question with just a single choice and list all the transactions that your customers could have completed at the time of the survey)
  2. How would you rate the overall quality of your transaction?
  3. Based on the transaction that you’ve just completed, how likely are you to recommend our (company/product/service) to a friend or family member?
  4. What is the one thing we can do to improve your experience with us? (You can use a text box here or make a list of items that you’d like your customers to choose as either a single choice or multiple choice question)

Once you’ve created this standard survey — you can run this survey over and over again and use the trend analysis feature to track your Net Promoter Score or overall satisfaction score.

Here’s how to set up trend analysis for a survey such as this:

I’ve used the trend analysis feature on weekly customer satisfaction surveys and have found it to be insanely easy and useful for regular reporting to staff.

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Customer Satisfaction Measurement Options to Consider

Posted on April 2, 2012 by | 6 Comments

Whenever you hear the words customer satisfaction survey – you’re probably thinking about online surveys, or surveys you fill out on a card and hand into a retail establishment.   But those aren’t your only options.

The biggest mistake small businesses make when it comes to customer satisfaction

A lot of businesses run customer satisfaction surveys as a sort of scorecard or report card.  But that’s really not the point.  The  reason for doing customer satisfaction surveys is to find out what’s important to your customers and then see how you can deliver on that.

What should you measure in terms of satisfaction?

While it’s easy to think of customer satisfaction in terms of a grade or scorecard – it won’t help you get and keep more customers.

There are three primary elements of customer satisfaction that are important in helping you structure your business in a way that attracts new customers and delivers the most value to the customers you already have:

  1. What’s important to them when they are choosing or thinking about buying  your type of product or service.
  2. How satisfied they are with their experience of your organization (your performance)
  3. How loyal they are or how likely they are to refer your product or service to friends, colleagues or family.
Granted, this sounds like a report card – and you can look at it that way — OR — you can choose to look at this as a foundation survey that you do to target exactly those areas where you have the most opportunity to set yourself apart from other alternatives that they consider.
Run this foundation survey at least once per year – preferably twice per year.  Treat the results as an index.  In fact, the third measure “loyalty” is actually the Net Promoter Score element of the survey and serves as an excellent metric to track.
Use the insights you get from the bi-annual surveys to inspire OTHER ways of gathering feedback using a variety of other tools.  Here are some examples:
Say that your bi-annual survey uncovers that your customers often choose another alternative because the lines at your location are too long or it takes too long to check out of your retail location.
Given this feedback, you can now set up a “feedback” opportunity at each checkout counter in the form of a sign that asks the question — did you wait too long?  Next to the “YES” response, use a thumbs down graphic with a QR code and next to the “NO” response use a thumbs-up graphic with a QR code.

In this case we used SurveySwipe, a mobile survey app that integrates seamlessly with either QuestionPro or SurveyAnalytics surveys.  When your customers download the app, they can then provide you feedback via QR codes places all over the store.

If your product or service is online based, you can place a button on your site that leads people to a survey where they can leave feedback.  When you think about people landing on your site, you can imagine that something might come up for them where they will want or need to tell you what is missing for them on your site or what would work better.  When you give them the option for feedback on every page on your site- you can actually improve their impression or experience by simply giving them this option.

As you can see from the examples I’ve given you – you can easily transform the way you look at customer satisfaction from a scorecard to an opportunity for your customers to connect with you and provide you information that will allow you to radically improve their experience.

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