Customer IQ?
How much you know about your customers, their needs and their perceptions of you can make — or break — your operation. Just ask Stan Miklis, a sole proprietor in Dallas, Texas. Operating Caliper Farm to Market since 1974, Miklis has conducted customer surveys and acted on his findings for decades. “I’ve always tried to know who my customers are,” Miklis says. “You have to find out what people need before you can possibly meet those needs.”
To that end, he combines informal and formal market research methods. Casually interacting with customers is among the easiest, most common ways vendors learn what’s working and what’s not. But, Miklis cautions: “The cliché question, ‘May I help you?’ doesn’t work.” Instead, he says, you should ask: “What were you looking for today [at the farmers market] that you didn’t find? That’s a question that they don’t have a built-in response for, and they will give you an answer.” The responses he
receives inform next season’s crop choices and give him an advantage over competitors who also lack the coveted fruit or veggie in question.
Miklis also relies on the feedback capabilities of Square, the credit card processing app he uses. Customers paying with cards receive their receipt electronically and
are asked to rate their experience with a corresponding smiley or frowning face. “It’s not just a credit card processor,” he notes. “[Customers] can give you feedback. You can do a lot of both-ways communication.”
Strategy & Scale
Incorporating more formal survey methods can offer an even fuller customer picture. Kristen Miles is the director of insights with Branded Research in San Diego, California. “You might just be talking to a handful of people in person, but does that handful of people really reflect the whole population of people who could be your customers?” she asks. “Conducting a survey is a great way to validate some of those things from your informal, in-person research, and having data just makes your decision-making so much easier.”
Of course, collecting the right data first is critical. Before scaling up your customer survey efforts, establish clear goals. This helps you determine which market research tools might work best. To augment what he learns from speaking directly with his customers, Miklis creates his own surveys and sends them directly to his customer email list.
“If you’re trying to be super frugal and spend nextto-no money, then leverage your existing customer base,” says PlanBeyond founder Laura Troyani. Based in Seattle, Washington. Troyani helps start-ups gather customer research and plan and execute marketing campaigns. “They’re going to be happy to answer a question or two for free,” she says. “It’s no effort on their part, and they’re happy to do your small business a favor.”
Tools of the Trade
Troyani also suggests tapping into community supported agriculture or farmers market groups if possible: “Take advantage of that larger organization’s platforms,” she says. “If the CSA or farmers market has maybe an e-newsletter or their own social media properties, I’d say those things probably have a bigger following than you do.”
Ask CSA and farmers market group leaders if you can use any of their channels to put out a customer feedback survey. Some of these organizations routinely conduct surveys of their own, so you might have them add a special question or two on your behalf.
If you would rather send out a survey yourself, lots of low-cost (if not zero-cost) surveying options exist. “If you use Facebook, they have some free polling options that you can use,” Troyani says. “Or you can use Survey Monkey and embed that [survey address link] on your Facebook page or on your website.”
While Facebook enables brief polls, online tools such as Survey Monkey allow for much longer, more in-depth questioning. The site’s basic plan is free, but more robust options are available via Survey Monkey’s paid portal. Survey Face and Lime Survey are two other easyto-use, free platforms to try.
Dos & Don’ts
Elliott B. Jaffa is a behavioral and marketing psychologist in Arlington, Virginia, who advises corporate clients in marketing and customer service. Considering some of the poorly constructed customer surveys he’s seen, he says that large companies have too many categories and too many questions, and they haven’t adequately considered what data they really want.
Make sure your questions support a clear goal, and your entire survey is concise. “Short, quick surveys that are just a couple of questions get much better and much more thoughtful responses than questions that try to answer everything,” Miles says.
Survey questions and multiple-choice answers should be simple, easy to understand and objectively written. “Take a step back and have others read through the questions that you’re asking before you launch your survey,” Miles says. “This will help make sure that the questions are not leading respondents in any particular direction.”
Question Types
When constructing surveys, Miklis often uses open-ended questions. “The more open the question, the more information you’ll receive,” he says. Just don’t go overboard. Miles tends to limit open-ended questions to one or two, because the feedback you get could lack focus.
If you don’t need an answer in your respondents’ own words, use multiple-choice or agree-disagree statements instead. When your survey is ready, share its corresponding link on social media, in e-newsletters and even on your product packaging.
“If you’re selling a product like eggs or meat or milk, you could actually put a request to answer a survey in that packaging,” Troyani says. “You can be creative about how you get [your survey] in front of the consumer.”
Facing Feedback
Once you do have customer feedback to review, be prepared for the good and the bad. “I try to take it objectively and not personally,” Miklis says. “You have to hear what people are saying and not get emotional. No matter what your platform is, whether it’s electronic or it’s [in-person], you have to listen.”