Do you know who your customers are? (...and who are you?)

Who buys your products and services? Do you know these people? Do you know how they found out about you? Do you know why they're buying from you and not your competitor?

Are you meeting their needs?

The last question is the most important and the reason why surveying your customers from time to time is an excellent idea.

At The Pot & Bead, we've tried surveying a couple of ways. First, every time someone comes in to paint pottery they fill out a slip that asks them how they've heard of us. This single piece of information has been responsible for my major decisions regarding our advertising budget over the years.

A couple of years in a row we mailed out a survey. Each year there was a specific theme to the questions we asked. For example, one year we focused the questions on birthday parties so we could figure out how to improve them. Every time we sent one out, we always included some standard demographic questions in order to track where our customers were coming from year after year.

We've also tried the online survey. Mailing surveys to our customer database became very expensive. There are several really fantastic online survey sites. My two favorite are zapsurvey.com and surveymonkey.com. Both offer a free version of their service (that limits the number of questions and responses). I've used the paid version for the store (needed more questions and responses). It was well worth it and cost next to nothing when compared to a mailing.

When making your own survey, think carefully about the questions. Don't ask a question unless you know why you're asking it or what you would do with the results. For example, when we asked several questions about birthday parties we were asking because we were ready to make changes in our offerings in that area so we held off on other more general questions.

I'm practicing what I preach today...

Here's a survey I just put together on surveymoney.com designed for me to find out about YOU, the reader of this blog. Please take the survey... it will help you see how fantastic it is (It only took me 15 minutes to set the survey up once I knew what questions I wanted to ask), and it will help me improve this blog. Win-win, right?

Click here to take survey

(This survey can be taken by anyone who just found their way here - whether today is the first day you've seen this blog or the 10th; whether you've read my book or not; whether you're a close friend or someone I've never met; whether it's the same day I posted this blog entry or a month from now.)

Thanks and have a great day!