How to design consumers' feedback questionnaire
In every business getting the feedback is important. We get feedback from our consumers to know:
A) How much satisfied they are?
B) How to improve our products or services?
C) How to retain consumers?
D) How to create the best experience ever as a competitive advantage?
E) How to engage our consumers more and more with our business?
If we agree on the above reasons then we need to figure out how we can design our questionnaires to get the best out of them.
1. To be digitalized: this is a great solution since we can analyze the data easier, faster and more reliable.
2. Interactive: If we digitalize the questionnaire then it's highly recommended to make it interactive. By "interactive" we mean that it should give immediate information to the consumers to persuade them to continue to the end with an honest approach, For example: if we are asking about a certain event, as soon as we get any feedback on satisfaction, we can provide the satisfaction rate of previous participants to show them the real situation or we can promise them if they fully reply to questions, we will send them the final result by email. Some companies are worried to reveal the facts and statistics but this can easily change the mindset of consumers. We can prove to them that they are our business partners and this is their decision that can grow our business.
3. Get data to make the decision-making process easier: Feedbacks are not requested to improve previous results but they can be great guidelines to design the future of business. Simple questions regarding extra expectations will show you how to direct the business to the next level. Again, before asking for the guidelines we should give some basic information to brief our consumers better. For instance, as an airline, we can ask our customers that we are thinking to establish our economy lounge at certain airports, how much they are willing to pay per session? and then we can give them some ranges to pick. The data can guide us if the decision is right and if yes, how much they would like to pay.
4. Give something extra to thank practically. Set aside some budget to give a small gift to those who cared for and filled out the questionnaire up to the end.
5. Don't focus only on points that should be improved from your point of view. You are not the consumer. If you wish to know everything, focus on the entire process and ask detailed questions.
6. One must ask question: Net Promoter Score (NPS). It's a simple question: "How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague? " If you wish to know more, you can click here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter). There is some criticism to NPS which you can find in the article but generally, it is a good index to figure out the position of your business among your consumers.
Feedback is a gift and we should appreciate it with the best of our abilities. It reveals useful information if we know how to ask for it.