4sight Survey Results

The results of the 4sight survey are now available as a download here.

Amongst the interesting feedback the survey revealed that:

• Only 30% of respondents survey their customers on an annual basis. 60% survey them occasionally or never.
• Email was the most popular methodology used by 35% of respondents whilst on-line surveys were used by 17%.
• 43% of respondents said that feedback from their customer survey was either important, very important or critical to the development of their business strategy.

Take the 4sight Survey

Have just launched an on-line survey designed to help us learn more about how companies get feedback from their customers.

If you enter we will send you a summary of the results.

http://www.4sightsurveys.co.uk/survey.php?s=4sightsurvey

Success for 4sight customer - Dynistics

At the ICT Excellence Awards this week three 4sight customers were up for an award - 2 were highly commended and one, Dynistics won the award for Best Added Value Product.

It was a great evening and good to gain industry recognition for Dynistics innovative Active Dashboards graphical reporting software. Active Dashboards has taken the UK market by storm and is now being sold in the US by an established Business Intelligence software vendor.

What Buyers Really care About

Just read a really interesting article by Josiane Feigon on 'What Buyers Really Care (and Don't Care) About' (you can find it in Jill Konrath's latest newsletter which you can sign up to at http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.com). In summary the article tells us that the things that really matter to buyers are:

• The time you take to learn about their business
• Taking low-risk decisions
• Your reputation and how many others do business with you
• They want to know exactly what they will get from their investment
• They want to get the most value for their money and see returns years later.

So forget about telling your customers that you are the fastest-growing and offer the great service, support and training in your emails, phone messages etc. and focus on the things that really matter to them.

And to ensure that you fully understand what it is that matters most about the products and services that you supply, use customer surveys to regularly check this out and to find out how well you are performing and what you can improve on.

Look for the simple answers

With a multitude of business books and marketing theories it is easy to become convinced that marketing is a very complicated and confusing business.

I am sure it can be, but often that is because we fail to look for the simple solutions.

For example, I once worked with a company promising 24 hour delivery - we probably managed it 80% of the time but that meant we let down a fifth of our customers.

When we asked them how important 24 hour delivery was we found that much more important was keeping to our delivery promises - whether that be 24, 48 or 72 hours!

By understanding what really mattered to our customers we could tailor our service and ensure that we were actually satisfying almost 100%.

A simple question but a huge impact on customer satisfaction.

Where next?

Many of the small and medium-sized companies that we work with have built a strong position in a specific market niche. The original decision to focus was most likely based on a particular skill or experience of the business owner. For example one client developed a new product based upon the frustrations of using the existing solutions available.

The opportunities to expand the business may become limited by the scope of the niche and at this point the businesses are faced with the decision - where next?

There are a number of different processes to help the business decide where the best opportunities lie. These clearly have to take on board the existing capabilities and competences of the business but also must be based upon a realistic assessment of the market opportunity. In this way businesses can avoid the risk of assuming that, just because the market is new to you it is a a great opportunity!

• How will the existing suppliers react to a new entrant?
• How happy are the customers with their existing suppliers?
• How will your offer be differentiated from current solutions?
• Are the channels of distribution available to you?
• Will customers value your experience and capabilities in other markets

Businesses need to think seriously about these and many other questions before they consider entering any new market sector.

What do you really know?

You may 'think you know' everything about your business - but what really matters is what your customers 'know and think' about it.

On almost every marketing project we undertake our customers believe they are the experts and know everything there is to know about their business.

We do not try to disabuse them of this but we do often pose a number of additional questions e.g.

• how do your customers perceive you?
• who do they see as your competitors?
• why do they buy from you?

If you cannot answer these and other questions based on properly gathered feedback from your customers rather than just on a hunch - do you really know your own business?

Using On-Line Surveys in Different Ways

Using Customer Surveys to identify new business opportunities is something I have written about before and you can download an article from www.4sightsurveys.co.uk . We are currently involved in two other projects to help our clients shape and develop their offer to specific market sectors.

One client a Housing Association wants to share the significant benefits it has gained from an in-house developed software solution with other members of the housing community. The Chief Executive will be contacting his peers and inviting them to visit a specially developed website where they can learn more about the benefits achieved. On the site they will have the opportunity, through an on-line survey 4sight has developed, to provide feedback and to indicate whether they would like to become involved in the initiative.

A second client has booked a small additional stand at an exhibition in order to gather feedback from attendees on new services it is proposed to offer. Again an on-line survey will be used giving attendees the opportunity to participate on the day or later in the week from home or office.

Will let you know how successful these new initiatives are.

Gathering feedback at an Exhibition

We shall be at Sustainability Live next week (19-21 May 2009) at the NEC where one of our clients - NLS - is gathering market information on a stand in the IWEX Hall using a survey developed by 4sight.

This is the first time we have used a survey in this context but we believe it is great opportunity to gather contacts and learn more about their needs.

New 4sight Surveys site & Twitter

The new 4sight Surveys site has been launched, have a look here.

Also, you can now follow John on twitter
---------------------------------------

Twitter Updates

follow me on Twitter