I read countless articles on the best ways to get customer feedback and to be honest…most of these miss the mark. They use old “Industrial Revolution” techniques when we are living in the “Internet Revolution”. And they wonder why they don’t get feedback…or the feedback they get is meaningless. There’s a reason…
Most traditional (and often used today) techniques focus on asking customers to give you lots of information and their insights. Sounds good when someone is selling you a process to use to get this deep and rich information…but they usually fall short of providing valuable and actionable information. Today, the customer isn’t giving this away as easily as they did 5, 10, or 20 years ago. Number one reason…they don’t have TIME…so they give you something to make you go away…surface information that usually isn’t all that helpful.
There are TWO MAIN PROBLEMS causing this issue of collecting information…and some solutions to help you get better information…
The first problem is VOLUME. We ask too many questions. Think in terms of watching a video on YouTube. When people go to YouTube to watch a video, where is the first place their eye goes when they hit the page? It’s not the title…it’s not the description…it’s the TIMER. If it is too long, they decide this will take too much time right now so they will “come back later” to watch the video…they don’t.
TIME is the most critical factor in everyone’s life today so when they see your survey or questionnaire, they want to know how many questions and how long it will take. If it’s too long, they tell themselves they will “come back later” which means they will never come back to answer your questions or give you feedback. And if there isn’t any insight into how long or how many questions, they will abort from the beginning and never start because they don’t want to take the chance of getting started and finding out it takes too much time because it is too long.
SOLUTION…make your survey’s short…ideal is one question (maybe up to 3). When customers see this, they will figure they can get it done within a couple minutes and move forward. Like the YouTube video, the ideal time for someone is less than 3 minutes. If they see a video that is shorter than 3 minutes their likelihood of watching it at that time goes up significantly. Ask the most important question you want the answer to first…and maybe just that one question.
This is why NPS (Net Promotor Score) has done so well over the years…it focuses on one key question. A question such as, “Would you recommend us to a friend?” gives you great and immediate insights into whether they are happy. But it doesn’t tell you “why” they weren’t happy or “why” they were happy. This takes more investigation.
Identify the top 1 – 3 questions you would love to have the answers to…the ones that could help you significantly improve your customer experience and ask those questions. Don’t waste your customer’s time with questions you either already know the answers to or wouldn’t have a profound impact on your business. Some of these questions are shown below…
The second problem is the QUESTIONS. Most surveys ask the wrong questions. They focus on asking the customer to give you specific fixes to their business…as if the customer knew your business well enough to answer that question. We ask them questions such as…
“What would you recommend we improve?” While this might be a great question at the right time, it is too broad and too random. You allow the customer to give you a wide variety of answers…many of which you can’t (or don’t want to) address. These are usually more “surface” solutions that don’t do much to get at the heart of what truly WOW’s your customer. For example, you could say you wanted donuts available in the lobby when you come into their store. What are you going to do about this…probably nothing so their request is ignored because it won’t have much of an impact but it would be nice for your customer to have…but wouldn’t change much of anything.
Questions that begin with “WHAT” can be dangerous. They ask for specific fixes to issues. While this might sound great on the surface, they are usually just that…surface answers that don’t address what would really cause your customer to have an awesome and incredible experience…they don’t get you to WOW. These tend to be very tactical and usually focus on the present…not the future. Rarely do customers think about you in terms of the future…unless you ask different questions. Asking “What” questions gives you current state, not where you should be headed.
SOLUTION…start asking questions that cause your customers to give you true insights and deeper information. These types of questions help you to learn “where you need to go” rather than focus on the present time. Questions that lead to customers thinking of possibilities and giving you their insights are worth their weight in gold.
Questions that start with “WHY” or “HOW” give you insights and information without forcing your customers to tell you “WHAT” you should do today. WHY and HOW get them thinking…help them look at possibilities and opportunities, not tactical fixes to something you don’t want to do in the future. Here are some example of really powerful questions you could think about using…
- WHY do you do business with us?
- WHY do you keep coming back to us for your purchases?
- HOW do we help you improve your own business or your life?
- HOW can we improve your experience so you would say, “WOW, you are awesome and I love the experience you give me every time?”
These are “thought provoking” questions that show your customer how important they are to helping you build to the future, not just the present. They go deeper…they ask for real answers to help improve both the present and future relationship. They are questions that demonstrate value and that you truly care about the feedback.
If you understand the answers to these types of questions, you can craft an experience that rocks…one that will cause them to say, “WOW, you listened and are really making my life better.” When this happens, they will be more than happy to continue giving you incredibly helpful feedback. And when you only ask a few of these more impactful questions, they will realize you are really respecting their TIME and not wanting to waste it with questions that don’t really change anything. Speaking of change…
One of the biggest issues to address before you embark on a journey of gathering any information is answering the key question internally…WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH IT? Don’t ask unless you are going to put the changes into practice. One of the phrases I use all the time and really hits the mark when it comes to getting customer information is… “Asking without Acting is worse than not Asking.”
Getting feedback is awesome…when you are ready for it. Think about the VOLUME of questions you are asking and ask WHY and HOW questions to get the information your competitors won’t get…because they are still asking WHAT. Spend some time developing the right questions that will solicit incredibly deep and insightful information without wasting your customers TIME and you have the right formula for getting feedback. This is a strategic exercise, not just something you put together. When it is well thought out, you get great feedback…and your customers appreciate it!
