Straight from the horse’s mouth is still the best way to find out what your customers think. Here’s three ways to get invaluable information from them. 

Let them contact you

Surveys don’t need to be formal. Solicit feedback on your website and send personalised follow-up emails to new customers to ask about their experience. Have a prominent link on your website for reviews and feedback — perhaps even a pop-up prompting people to use this link: “We’d love to hear from you”.

Information gleaned from these unstructured communications can be particularly important, as people who are motivated to leave feedback usually have something pertinent to raise. Ask what people liked about your business. Did they have any problems? Is there anything they would like done differently or any additional service they would like? 

Make it easy and don’t inundate

Surveys should be short and easy to access. Survey-building sites, such as the popular Survey Monkey, allow small businesses to format their own questionnaires from templates.

You can then send personal emails to clients which link them straight to the survey. Give a realistic appraisal of how long it will take to complete. Surveys of 3-10 questions on Survey Monkey take 2-5 minutes. The more questions you include, the less time on average, people will spend on each question. Make sure you’re not surveying the same customers more than once or twice a year. 

Offer incentives

People are busy. If you are asking for someone’s time, it can’t hurt to offer an incentive. It can be as simple as the ‘chance to go in the draw’ for a double movie pass, dinner for two or perhaps something from your business. You could also offer a small discount on a future purchase.