It’s the little things
February 15, 2012
By Kate Tribe, Tribe Research
Last week, Amy Lyden wrote about Disneyland still being the benchmark for exceptional service. One of her tips for offering better service is to survey customers about what it is that bugs them, and raises the excellent point that people often forget when starting a feedback survey:
It doesn’t have to mean changing complete systems though. It could be a small annoyance that is easily handled like fixing a navigation problem on your website. The important thing is to get outside of your own business and hear other viewpoints.
Here are three observations:
How is the phone answered?
In helping a client to understand at what stage prospects were in their buying cycle, we found the main block was the receptionist. She wasn’t professional. In addition, they’d developed a process to protect themselves from calls they didn’t want to receive that was so rigid many legitimate calls couldn’t get through.
How is the phone answered at your business? Have you called it recently not using your caller ID to see how other people get welcomed to the business?
Have you developed systems to provide you with time and space to run the business that stops prospects and customers from reaching you effectively?
Do you actively provide opportunity to buy?
I know this one seems a little unusual. Many businesses ‘sell’ too much, but some, in an effort to not appear like aggressive sellers they don’t like, end up under-selling.
More than once when collecting feedback, we’ve been told by engaged customers that they’re looking for ways to buy, be reminded how you can help and solve a problem they’re having, and be told about new products and services you offer.
Is it simple for all types of feedback to be given?
Many websites and businesses have channels and processes for complaints to be taken and processed, but not all feedback is a complaint. Sometimes feedback is a compliment or an idea. Not providing these other types of feedback gives a message about your brand that you may not want people to have. They also want to know that you’ve received the feedback and have acted on the content.
A simple way to gather feedback
If we could do one thing differently to improve your experience, what is it?
Kate Tribe will be speaking on the upcoming Australian Businesswomen’s Network webinar: Designing Effective Customer Feedback Surveys. **This webinar is open to ABN Growth Members Only**
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY KATE TRIBE
- 5 Lessons in Building a Tribe from a Music Festival
- Four End of Year Tribal Connecters
- Customer Feedback Survey Response Rates
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Kate Tribe – Tribe ResearchKate Tribe is the founder and Managing Director of Tribe Research. Kate has developed Tribe Research into an innovative and creative company focusing on accessible ways for business, non-profit and government sectors to grow from a better understanding of their tribe. Tribe Research aims for customers to explore their tribes of clients, customers, suppliers and staff, to uncover their views, and drive change in each clients business. Kate understands that as leaders of an organisation you need to be clear-headed about your marketing and business planning priorities and has made this a primary focus of Tribe Research’s solution. Kate believes that getting to know your tribe should be an enjoyable journey of discovery that gives you a clear head and direction to move forward, to drive change in the right direction.
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5 Lessons in Building a Tribe from a Music Festival
November 30, 2011
By Kate Tribe, Tribe Research
I just got back from the Huntington Estate Music Festival. A great five-day program, organised by Musica Viva, is performed by musicians from all over the world in the wonderful barrel room at Huntington Estate in Mudgee NSW.
Over the last two decades, they have been building an audience that continues to come back each year (and invites friends and family to come along as well)… they’re a loyal tribe!
Each year, I notice how they do many little things to help foster the loyalty.
Here are five key things they do:
It all starts with a great product
No matter how lovely you are, you need to have a great product that people will buy, again and again. Mostly trusting the quality of the key component – the program. This year the festival sold out before we knew the program or musicians. Carl Vine regularly puts together a great program that is mixed with a range of music and instruments. The food is good quality, but not overdone. The wine is excellent and free flowing. As an audience, you rarely feel limited in experience and you have the trust that it will be the same or better the next year.
Start the festival with feedback
If the previous festival had feedback forms, they communicate back to the audience at the start of the next festival how they listened and changed. At the end of the 2010 festival, they said how they needed to grow the audience. This year had more than 100 new patrons, mostly generated by the 2010 audience introducing friends to the festival. As an audience, we were thanked.
Invite introductions
The host, Nicky, includes in her introduction how she knows everyone’s name (from organising the tickets and seating) and many of the faces (from seeing them over the years), but doesn’t have all of them connected. She invited people to come and chat to her so she can join the names and faces. It means that many people at the festival feel they know her, connected, and integral to the festival rather than an attendee.
The musicians wander around the festival and sit with the crowd to eat, so you can easily chat to them. This creates a greater connection to the music than you usually have when you attend a concert and it is quite magical.
The Musica Viva staff all had name tags so you knew who they were and could easily talk to them. The Huntington Estate & catering staff all wore branded t-shirts so you knew who to ask for help.
Listen & adapt during the festival
Each year and each day during the festival, they are adjusting so that it is constantly improving.
Feeding 500+ people when they flood out of a concert is no easy task, especially when the clouds above have also opened and it is an outdoor eating environment. The process was regularly adjusted through the festival to be more efficient. New tents sprung up, seating was changed, extra staff appeared to assist in the more difficult situation. The continual adjustments made during the festival showed their focus on the experience for the audience.
Apologise for issues & show how they were fixed
Whenever something went wrong (which is always going to happen at an event that size), they fixed it, apologised and explained how it was fixed. They were upfront and honest about what was going on.
What little things can you do to foster loyalty and build your tribe?
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY KATE TRIBE
- Four End of Year Tribal Connecters
- Customer Feedback Survey Response Rates
- More isn’t always better when getting survey participants
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Kate Tribe – Tribe ResearchKate Tribe is the founder and Managing Director of Tribe Research. Kate has developed Tribe Research into an innovative and creative company focusing on accessible ways for business, non-profit and government sectors to grow from a better understanding of their tribe. Tribe Research aims for customers to explore their tribes of clients, customers, suppliers and staff, to uncover their views, and drive change in each clients business. Kate understands that as leaders of an organisation you need to be clear-headed about your marketing and business planning priorities and has made this a primary focus of Tribe Research’s solution. Kate believes that getting to know your tribe should be an enjoyable journey of discovery that gives you a clear head and direction to move forward, to drive change in the right direction.
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Four End of Year Tribal Connecters
November 2, 2011
By Kate Tribe, Tribe Research
How are you connecting with your tribe for the end of the year? It is time to start implementing some ideas. Here’s four of my tips.
Find a way to support a core segment of your business
At the end of last year, I wanted to help other small business owners. I took on a Christmas mission to buy all of my family’s presents from Australian SMEs.
- It allowed me to think creatively about what to buy because I wasn’t just walking into a department store to find the best option. I needed to think about the business owners I knew and if their product or service would be great for one of my family.
- It helped me to understand the buying process of my friend’s businesses and give them feedback about it.
- I advertised the purchases along the way so that they were promoted at the same time.
- I had a story to tell my family when I gave them their gift.
I wrote about my Christmas mission at the time.
Individual presents for clients
Don’t select one item and give to every client. It might be quicker to select one item, like wine, and give it to all clients that you’ve decided to give a present to, but it isn’t as special. Another way to give a special thank you is to make it. You can do it in a way that shows them another side of you and is generous.
Connect clients together that could help each other
Instead of going on individual lunches with various favourite clients, take two or three out together so they can meet and network. It will educate your clients about other work you do and allow them to find out some of the other amazing people you know. A slightly larger group makes it more fun and saves you time.
Find a way to reconnect in the new year
Instead of sending end of year cards, utilise the quieter period in January to write new year cards. It will allow you to enjoy the end of the year and you’ll be top of mind at the start of the year.
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY KATE TRIBE
- Customer Feedback Survey Response Rates
- More isn’t always better when getting survey participants
- Grandpa didn’t understand the term networking. It’s just good practice.
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Kate Tribe – Tribe ResearchKate Tribe is the founder and Managing Director of Tribe Research. Kate has developed Tribe Research into an innovative and creative company focusing on accessible ways for business, non-profit and government sectors to grow from a better understanding of their tribe. Tribe Research aims for customers to explore their tribes of clients, customers, suppliers and staff, to uncover their views, and drive change in each clients business. Kate understands that as leaders of an organisation you need to be clear-headed about your marketing and business planning priorities and has made this a primary focus of Tribe Research’s solution. Kate believes that getting to know your tribe should be an enjoyable journey of discovery that gives you a clear head and direction to move forward, to drive change in the right direction.
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Customer Feedback Survey Response Rates
September 7, 2011
By Kate Tribe, Tribe Research
I’m often asked what number of participants or response rate needed for a customer or contact feedback survey.
There isn’t one definitive clear answer.
A range of factors needs to be considered when designing a survey and the number of participants isn’t the only important aspect (my last post was an introduction to this). In fact, a large number of participants can still be biased if they differ substantially from those who don’t participate or aren’t relevant to your survey. This means that you could make decisions for your business that are incorrect – wasting your resources.
Many factors have been found to relate to whether a person invited to participate in a survey, will actively participate. Research about what influences one person to participate and someone else not respond, is conflicting. What works for one person, might not for another.
Considerations include:
- Ability to be reached
- Advanced warning of the survey
- Who is conducting the research
- Time
- Incentives
- Interest in the topic & sense of obligation
For me, it is largely about getting the right number and type of hooks to participate and that is estimated by understanding a bit about your tribe. After the survey, the relevance of those who participated can be best established if you already have some good information about those invited to participate. This is why a feedback cycle with internal data collection is so important.
Ability to be reached
How up to date is your database? If you don’t have current contact details in your database, then you won’t be reaching as many people that you thought you could.
Where are they? Is it best to contact them via email, telephone, paper survey in the post, distribution of a QR code, or social media.
There are many other considerations in relation to their ability to be reached, some are:
- Email
- Will your email be blocked by a spam filter?
- Don’t include the survey with a newsletter as it will get lost with other content and you won’t reach those you’d like to participate.
- Phone
- Can you get through to them with a direct number?
- If contacting on a mobile they could have private numbers blocked.
- The interviewer has a big impact on participation levels.
- General
- Some companies have a policy to not allow staff to participate in surveys.
- If there are sensitive topics then prioritise privacy in the design and in the invitation letter.
Advanced warning of the survey
Distributing advanced warning of the surveys and igniting some interest about the importance of the survey will improve participation. The survey will have additional context for those you’re inviting to participate.
Who is conducting the research
Depending on the content, method of data collection and the invitee, the options are; you conduct the research yourself, or get the survey conducted externally. Then there are a range of options for which organisation that is. There are a range of situations when having the feedback collected externally is better – especially if there is sensitive information being collected and if the survey is by telephone interview.
Time
How long the survey will take to complete and if the participant has the time available is a factor in both deciding to participate and drop out during the survey. The higher the desire to participate, the longer the survey can be, however a survey shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes to complete. A 5-10 minute survey is preferable. You have to be honest in the invitation about the length of the survey, otherwise you’ll damage your reputation.
Consider times when they’re available to participate. Think about the impact of school holidays, public or seasonal holidays, when a conference is on that many could attend, peak seasons for that industry or exam times for students, or when they’re pre-occupied with end-of-year.
Incentives
There are a range of views about incentives and their effect on participation. The decision isn’t just about if you should include an incentive but then also the type of incentive to include.
An incentive doesn’t guarantee they’ll provide honest answers or result in the participants you need. In fact, incentives might encourage erroneous answers to just get to the end of the survey so they can get the incentive.
Incentives have different effects for different groups.
The general arguments for incentives are:
- the payment or gift is viewed as a counter to the burden of participation
- stimulates a sense of obligation by the person to respond in kind
Incentives can be contingent upon completion of the survey or non-contingent (provided in advance).
The groups incentives do benefit are those that are traditionally under represented like minority, lower-educated or those less interested in the study’s topic.
Interest in the topic & sense of obligation
People more involved in the topic are more likely to participate than those not involved. Those not interested in the topic are more influenced by other factors in the survey invitation (mentioned above) to participate.
It isn’t about just ‘throwing a number in the air‘
It is for all these reasons that a market or social researcher will often take a breath when you ask: How many participants do we need for us to be able to get reliable feedback from a customer/contact feedback survey.
A low response rate can be an important finding in itself. If you have considered these factors and there is a low participation, then there is a possibility that your database isn’t engaged and that highlights other issues in your business that you need to consider.
Just wanted a number?
Then use the table in this post on the Vovici blog. In case you were wondering, I wrote the first line of this post before getting the link to include here, although I’ve referred many people to the post before. The question is asked that often!
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY KATE TRIBE
- More isn’t always better when getting survey participants
- Grandpa didn’t understand the term networking. It’s just good practice.
- Gaining insights for priority setting
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Kate Tribe – Tribe ResearchKate Tribe is the founder and Managing Director of Tribe Research. Kate has developed Tribe Research into an innovative and creative company focusing on accessible ways for business, non-profit and government sectors to grow from a better understanding of their tribe. Tribe Research aims for customers to explore their tribes of clients, customers, suppliers and staff, to uncover their views, and drive change in each clients business. Kate understands that as leaders of an organisation you need to be clear-headed about your marketing and business planning priorities and has made this a primary focus of Tribe Research’s solution. Kate believes that getting to know your tribe should be an enjoyable journey of discovery that gives you a clear head and direction to move forward, to drive change in the right direction.
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More isn’t always better when getting survey participants
August 10, 2011
By Kate Tribe, Tribe Research
In quantitative research we are, by definition, all about numbers. But numbers aren’t just numbers when it comes to survey participants. More is not always better.
This is why we’re cautionary about recruiting participants through social media. You may get many survey participants, but are they the right ones?
Take this fictional and simplified, but very possible example.
- You have a product that is for 15 year old females.
- You have a Facebook page with heaps of likers.
- The Facebook page statistics show the age and gender of your likers mostly fit your target market (assuming those people have entered into Facebook their demographics accurately).
- You need to develop your strategy for the next 6 months and want some feedback from your market, so you set up a survey using online software.
- Then you post a link to the survey on your Facebook business page.
- For added measure, you also post the survey on your personal page asking for help.
- Friends do the survey and share the link asking their friends to help you out.
- You’re really happy as you have heaps of participants so you close the survey, look at the results and start to develop the strategy.
But…
- Your friends and their friends aren’t 15 year old girls, they are mostly mum’s of 15 year old girls, so the feedback you’re getting isn’t from your target market.
- If you didn’t ask in the survey if they are a 15 year old girl, then you wouldn’t know to exclude those not in your target market, or analyse them separately (they could turn out to be a new market).
If you did ask questions to identify if participants are in your target market, although the number of relevant participants is lower, you can still develop your strategy, assuming you have enough of them. However if you didn’t ask the questions to identify if participants are in your target market, then you could develop a strategy for your business that is completely wrong.
Some ways to make sure the feedback is relevant and you can develop strategy using it:
- Develop a good database for your business in your own system/software, so that you can contact people directly for feedback.
- You can buy participants from panel providers that will distribute the survey to only those in your market.
- If you distribute the survey on social media as well, use a copied survey or separate links so that you can look at those participants separately.
- Think about whether your market could be better reached offline and consider using as an alternative or in addition.
- Include questions in a survey that will help you segment your participants for the needs of your business.
- Make sure you communicate back some of the results so that they know you have listened.
If you’re using the feedback to develop the strategy for your business, you don’t want the design of the survey and the way you collect it to give you feedback that sends you in the wrong direction.
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY KATE TRIBE
- Grandpa didn’t understand the term networking. It’s just good practice.
- Gaining insights for priority setting
- A survey isn’t the only way to capture information
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Kate Tribe – Tribe ResearchKate Tribe is the founder and Managing Director of Tribe Research. Kate has developed Tribe Research into an innovative and creative company focusing on accessible ways for business, non-profit and government sectors to grow from a better understanding of their tribe. Tribe Research aims for customers to explore their tribes of clients, customers, suppliers and staff, to uncover their views, and drive change in each clients business. Kate understands that as leaders of an organisation you need to be clear-headed about your marketing and business planning priorities and has made this a primary focus of Tribe Research’s solution. Kate believes that getting to know your tribe should be an enjoyable journey of discovery that gives you a clear head and direction to move forward, to drive change in the right direction.
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Grandpa didn’t understand the term networking. It’s just good practice.
July 14, 2011
By Kate Tribe, Tribe Research
One of the results from the Australian Businesswomen’s Network 2010 survey was a need for more networking opportunities. Opportunities to network are everywhere, the biggest issue is that we don’t do it properly.
I wanted to share here, a post that I wrote on my personal blog. It is a way to live, not an event, and it will create a tribe around you of clients, customers, staff, supporters, fans, advisors, and friends.
My grandpa was a great connector and mentor to me, so I thought I’d share a conversation I had with him about networking.
I believe we’ve made it too complicated. So did he.
Generate good-will because you want to help
Grandpa almost always greeted me by saying: Have you generated any good-will recently?
He asked it so often that it became ingrained in my thinking.
It also meant I always needed to have a response of: Yes, I’ve…
His response would be: Well if you’ve generated some good-will then it will come together for you.
Understand what you’re passionate about and how you can assist
Grandpa was a lawyer by trade. He was passionate about it. He was even more passionate about the arts and knew he could use his skills as a lawyer and passion for the arts to help. In turn his experience with arts organisations helped his business as a lawyer.
Know what is work to you and know when to offer it for free
When grandpa did property law, it was work (that doesn’t mean he didn’t enjoy it). When it was using his skills in the arts it wasn’t. I’m not saying that all property work was charged, he had pro-bono clients. However, when it came to the arts he didn’t charge, he received rewards in other ways, which were sometimes just pleasure.
Communicate
As Kim Williams said at a celebration of grandpa’s life:
I’ve been a periodic recipient of thoughtful letters from him. Some of them unusually long in that beautiful copper plate hand writing of his… At times they were welcome; and others caused me to pause and reflect with considerable care in response to their striking observations which I can assure you were rendered with disarming candor. I am sure that many others have received similar precious communications with the sort of direct observations which we all too rarely experience in the course of life.
The key aspects to what Kim said about letters from grandpa (he was pre-internet in terms of communication) was that we ‘all too rarely experience’ it and that they had ‘striking observations’. More importantly, they were received by enough people that when Kim told the story there was fond laughter from the audience.
Grandpa, sat down to write letters to people on a regular basis. To touch base or share his views… he communicated and that created a great connection to a broad range of people.
He didn’t see it as networking. It was just the right way to live. He didn’t understand the term networking because it was just good practice.
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY KATE TRIBE
- Gaining insights for priority setting
- A survey isn’t the only way to capture information
- The 9-Step Feedback Cycle
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Kate Tribe – Tribe ResearchKate Tribe is the founder and Managing Director of Tribe Research. Kate has developed Tribe Research into an innovative and creative company focusing on accessible ways for business, non-profit and government sectors to grow from a better understanding of their tribe. Tribe Research aims for customers to explore their tribes of clients, customers, suppliers and staff, to uncover their views, and drive change in each clients business. Kate understands that as leaders of an organisation you need to be clear-headed about your marketing and business planning priorities and has made this a primary focus of Tribe Research’s solution. Kate believes that getting to know your tribe should be an enjoyable journey of discovery that gives you a clear head and direction to move forward, to drive change in the right direction.
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Gaining insights for priority setting
May 18, 2011
By Kate Tribe, Tribe Research
Does your feedback cycle give you clear priorities for marketing and development?
I often see this aspect only partially completed and it negatively impacts the rest of the feedback cycle.
Asking about overall satisfaction in some way is very useful.
- Internally tracking the business: ‘Last year, we scored 7/10 for satisfaction but this year it has improved to 8/10′
- Marketing: ’99% of our customers recommend us’
- Benchmarking: “Apia led the way with a high score of +69 in the renowned 2009 Net Promoters Score. Far ahead of its competitors, the average score for this category was only +2.” Source APIA
Be clear about your aims so you ask about satisfaction in a beneficial way.
Big picture question: How likely are you to recommend The Australian Businesswomen’s Network on a scale from 0-10, where 0 is very low and 10 is very high?
- Good for measuring change over time as you can compare the average score between surveys and between segments of your customer base.
- Can benchmark your business against others as it is the question for calculating the Net Promoter Score.
- Don’t use for a quick marketing grab as you won’t get a useful number for that purpose.
- Be aware that people generally think about 7 as average in a 0-10 point scale, not 5.
Detail style question: How satisfied are you with the following services provided by the Australian Businesswomen’s Network, on a scale of 1-7 where 1=not satisfied and 7= very satisfied?
- Good for measuring views about specific aspects of your business if you word in a clear and simple way.
- Can use a ‘traffic light’ colour system to show the results to others internally – the aspects with the highest ratings are green (6 or 7) and those with middle scores orange (3, 4, or 5), then low scores are red (1 or 2).
- Don’t ask about too many aspects, otherwise participants will get tired and not individually rate each aspect.
- Be aware that you need to include a ‘not applicable’ option if some participants have not used the service you’re asking about. If you don’t include a ‘not applicable’ then they will leave the survey out of frustration or guess an answer, which will give you misleading results. For example, not everyone involved with the ABN has been involved with MentorNet so they can’t rate their level of satisfaction with it.
You can’t set priorities properly if you only ask about satisfaction.
If you ask about importance, as well as satisfaction, you can then identify aspects that are:
- high importance + low satisfaction = you need to improve as they are seen as weaknesses
- high importance + high satisfaction = you should be marketing as your strengths
- low importance + high satisfaction = stop investing time and money on
- low importance + low satisfaction = stop having this as part of your offering
Ask about the importance of the aspects in your business before asking about satisfaction. This can be easily done by asking: How important are the following when thinking about a business networking and educational group, on a scale of 1-7 where 1=not important and 7=very important?
- Good for orientating you to be thinking about your direct and indirect competitors.
- Can display as a scatter plot with satisfaction which easily shows priorities.
- Don’t change the wording of the aspects. Ask them the same way for both the importance and satisfaction otherwise you won’t be able to compare them later.
- Be aware of using your customer’s language, not yours, when talking about aspects in your business (for the satisfaction) or in the market generally (for the importance).
The benefit of these questions is that results can be presented 3 ways:
- visually
- written up descriptively
- as a simple number
This allows different types of people to absorb the information and think about ways to grow your business.
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY KATE TRIBE
- A survey isn’t the only way to capture information
- The 9-Step Feedback Cycle
- Survey Reveals Diversity Within the ABN Community
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Kate Tribe - Tribe ResearchKate Tribe is the founder and Managing Director of Tribe Research. Kate has developed Tribe Research into an innovative and creative company focusing on accessible ways for business, non-profit and government sectors to grow from a better understanding of their tribe. Tribe Research aims for customers to explore their tribes of clients, customers, suppliers and staff, to uncover their views, and drive change in each clients business. Kate understands that as leaders of an organisation you need to be clear-headed about your marketing and business planning priorities and has made this a primary focus of Tribe Research’s solution. Kate believes that getting to know your tribe should be an enjoyable journey of discovery that gives you a clear head and direction to move forward, to drive change in the right direction.
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A survey isn’t the only way to capture information
April 20, 2011
By Kate Tribe, Tribe Research
There are many times in your customer’s journey when you can capture information to help you to understand them better – both individually and in terms of your whole business. Here are 4:
How did they find out about you?
Find out early how they found out about you. You might have many contacts in your database that become customers from one marketing source, clearly it’s one you need to keep. If it was a referral, have you thanked them? Are you storing who your referrers are so that you can analyse the types of customers they are sending to you? You might also spend a lot of time and/or money on another source that is bringing you contacts but not customers. Often your perception isn’t reality, which is why collecting data and periodically analysing it will help you to be clear about the facts that you can then use to make business decisions. Additionally, collecting this information in a survey could be different due to recall bias.
Are they profitable?
If they keep coming back to you, so have the advantage of being regular, but you can’t charge them in a profitable way, then you need to say good-bye. You will only know this if you collect information about how much time you spend working on their needs as well as how much they pay. Use your accounting package’s time billing component if you’re a service-based business so that you can see how much time you and your team spend on a client. This is especially important when you provide fixed priced quotes and then do the work, or if you have a policy that you don’t charge for all those 5 minute calls. It doesn’t always take what you estimated at the beginning.
Are the payment terms good for both parties?
In the product sector, a customer generally pays in advance or on delivery, however the business has already paid for much of the cost of the product and storage related to it until the customer decides to buy it. The service sector is a little trickier in terms of payment terms. It can be negotiated for payment at the end, deposits, full up-front and many other combinations. What is important is finding a balance where the customer will be happy about the terms but is also good for your cash flow. It also isn’t just about the invoicing, it is when they pay the invoice. Keeping track of the number of days customers take to pay in previous jobs will assist you the next time you set up a contract with the client.
Can you find a special marketing angle?
Tribe Research helps many business owners, so one way that we keep in touch is to send a birthday card in the month that they registered their business. The information is publicly available, easy to find and enter into a database – and then a report can be created on a monthly basis. I believe business owners should be celebrating these mile stones and often forget to do it, so the card is a good prompt. What new way could you connect with your customers and prospects in an unexpected way?
Store it in a database
Firstly, relying on your brain to remember all of it, puts a lot of pressure on your brain that could be used in a better way. More importantly, as soon as you hire staff (or sub contractors, or suppliers that assist with administration), if it is only in your brain, it will be very difficult for them to help you.
Secondly, storage allows you to cross analyse information. You can compare: how they found out about you, how much they paid, how much time you spent working for that client, how fast they paid. You can then work out which ones you want to keep – and which ones your business is better off without.
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY KATE TRIBE
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Kate Tribe - Tribe ResearchKate Tribe is the founder and Managing Director of Tribe Research. Kate has developed Tribe Research into an innovative and creative company focusing on accessible ways for business, non-profit and government sectors to grow from a better understanding of their tribe. Tribe Research aims for customers to explore their tribes of clients, customers, suppliers and staff, to uncover their views, and drive change in each clients business. Kate understands that as leaders of an organisation you need to be clear-headed about your marketing and business planning priorities and has made this a primary focus of Tribe Research’s solution. Kate believes that getting to know your tribe should be an enjoyable journey of discovery that gives you a clear head and direction to move forward, to drive change in the right direction.
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The 9-Step Feedback Cycle
March 24, 2011
By Kate Tribe, Tribe Research
Do you get the most from your survey?
Doing a survey is only part of the process. Most businesses believe they don’t get value from doing a survey because they don’t action it properly. Here is a guide on how to do that.
Step 1. What is the purpose or aim of the survey?
Think about what your end game is.
Define how you are going to use the information to grow your business. Two great starting points is thinking how your tribe (customers, clients, staff, suppliers and anyone else with an interest in your business) are filled with ideas on what you do well and what you could improve. Capturing that information in a survey so that you can grow your business will get you off on the right track.
Don’t have more than 3 aims and make sure they are distinct. Otherwise your survey it will become very long.
Doing this first step will emotionally involve you in the process so that you complete all the steps.
Step 2. What questions do you want to ask?
Develop a set of questions that cover each aim. Review the questions and see if you can combine a few questions together in a grid or matrix question. You don’t want a survey to have many of these, but one or two can reduce the survey length.
Step 3. What is the best way to communicate with the people you’d like to participate?
While an online survey is often the first choice, it isn’t always the best. Consider the best way to gain the information to grow your business and communicate with your tribe. A telephone or paper survey might be effective for your business.
Step 4. What do the results say?
Look at the feedback and uncover what the participants are saying about your business. What do they see your strengths are? What do they see you could improve?
Are there particular subgroups saying the same things? This will highlight segments that you can customise aspects of your business to better service.
Step 5. Can you compare to internal information?
What do you collect while running your business that you can compare with the feedback received? A simple comparison that can be made for a service based business:
- Ask clients to rate the importance and satisfaction of: value for money, quality, responsiveness to enquiries, and value to the bottom line in their business. Another question is: “how likely they are to recommend your services?”.
- Internally collect how much time you spend with the client and how much they pay for your services. Include the quoting process in that calculation then you can gain an overall investment in the client. Then divide the income received by the hours invested.
You are then able to compare the profitability of the client and their views of your business. If those that are really happy are not profitable, then your business has an issue to resolve. Happy clients are great, but not if you can’t stay in business.
Step 6. Have you scheduled a planning session?
You need to take some time away from the everyday to evaluate and plan. Otherwise your survey will be stuck at Step 4 or 5 – which wastes the time of both you and those who have participated.
Step 7. Have you drafted a calendar to add ideas you want to implement?
You won’t have time to implement everything at once. Create a calendar to stagger the ways you’re going to drive change and a strategy to tell your tribe about when they will see the changes. Include it in a calendar with other aspects of your business. Don’t have implementations at the same time when you know you have peak client work as you won’t reach your targets.
Step 8. Can you identify ways to communicate back?
There are several advantages to communicating back the results
- Both participants and non-participants will know you’ve listened. It shows you appreciated the time they invested in your business. That feels good.
- Everyone will know what you plan to do with the results and will have a better understanding of your business
- When you ask them to participate again they know that you utilise the information so will be more likely to participate
Step 9. Have you decided when to start the process again?
The feedback cycle isn’t static. Neither is business. Views change, needs change, products and services change. You need to keep seeking feedback, getting offsite to plan, and communicating back.
The time frame of the feedback cycle will depend on your business. My business, Tribe Research, completes the feedback cycle twice a year. We have a planning session in January and July with the feedback survey before each planning session and we communicate back after each one through our newsletter and blog.
How has a feedback cycle helped your business?
MORE GREAT BLOG POSTS BY KATE TRIBE
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Kate Tribe - Tribe ResearchKate Tribe is the founder and Managing Director of Tribe Research. Kate has developed Tribe Research into an innovative and creative company focusing on accessible ways for business, non-profit and government sectors to grow from a better understanding of their tribe. Tribe Research aims for customers to explore their tribes of clients, customers, suppliers and staff, to uncover their views, and drive change in each clients business. Kate understands that as leaders of an organisation you need to be clear-headed about your marketing and business planning priorities and has made this a primary focus of Tribe Research’s solution. Kate believes that getting to know your tribe should be an enjoyable journey of discovery that gives you a clear head and direction to move forward, to drive change in the right direction.
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Survey Reveals Diversity Within the ABN Community
February 23, 2011
In December 2010, the Australian Businesswomen’s Network conducted its Community Survey. Here is the first snapshot of the results from the over 500 people who participated.
The survey included StartUp and Growth members, members of the ABN Community and people connected to the ABN through social media.
Community older than previously
The participants this time were older than in the 2007 survey, with the proportion of participants less than 45 decreasing from 62% to 54%.
30% were born overseas
These 30% were born in 35 different countries and now part of the ABN Community. The main countries were United Kingdom, New Zealand and United States.
43% live in a major city in New South Wales
While the services of the ABN are largely online and Member roundtables are in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, almost half of the participants (47%) live in New South Wales.
39% don’t have children
While 39% of the participants don’t have children, the Australian Census 2006 reports that 25% of 25-54 year olds don’t have children. Are we too busy working in (or on) our business to have a family of our own or will the 2011 Census show an increase in the proportion without children? The ABN plans to do more research in this area.
Of those with school aged children or younger, more than half do not have access to registered or authorised child care and more than a tenth employ a nanny.
57% are fully employed by their own business
The proportion fully employed by their own business has remained the same since 2007. However, the proportion employed by someone else and do not intend to start their own business has increased slightly, and the proportion who have an idea for a business but haven’t started it yet have decreased slightly.
Broad range of business experience
While almost half (48%) of business owners have been in business for less than 4 years, 23% have been in business for more than 10 years, showing the broad range of experience that the community can connect across.
62% use social networks for business
Twitter, Facebook and/or LinkedIn are being used by almost two thirds of the ABN Community to connect their business with others. This is interesting in comparison to Smart Company report of an Optus survey in The 10 next social media trends (October 2010) that only 28% of small businesses used social media to promote their business while 56% had no near-term plans to start. While the comScore State of the Internet in Australia report recently released says that 82% of Australians 15 years or older visit social networking sites (although it doesn’t separate personal and business use).
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Kate Tribe - Tribe ResearchKate Tribe is the founder and Managing Director of Tribe Research. Kate has developed Tribe Research into an innovative and creative company focusing on accessible ways for business, non-profit and government sectors to grow from a better understanding of their tribe. Tribe Research aims for customers to explore their tribes of clients, customers, suppliers and staff, to uncover their views, and drive change in each clients business. Kate understands that as leaders of an organisation you need to be clear-headed about your marketing and business planning priorities and has made this a primary focus of Tribe Research’s solution. Kate believes that getting to know your tribe should be an enjoyable journey of discovery that gives you a clear head and direction to move forward, to drive change in the right direction.
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