Ask any practice partner about their understanding of the client base and they’ll likely be miffed at the implication they might not be au fais with what clients really think. After all, if there is no real client retention issues beyond the usual death or sale reasons then why would be concerned? Except that in real life, things are never quite what they might seem. This is where well contructed surveys can be indispensable. The problem is construction.
I’m currently trialing Zoomerang Premium. So far I’ve been pleased with the results. At $599 for a full year I thought it is a bit steep when I might only wish to conduct (say) 3-4 each year. They’ve fixed that so you can go on a pay per month. I’d prefer to pay on a per drink model. That’s because some of the surveys in which I am interested are necessarily long running. They could for example provide a model based on number of responses.
Zoomerang makes it relatively easy for me to start constructing surveys because they provide a library of templates to get you going. These are immensely useful when figuring out which demographics matter. That’s not always as simple as it might sound. In any client portfolio, does it for example matter whether you know how old the client is or whether they are male or female? These are important design issues that are rarely easy to overcome without some help.
Where Zoomerang can’t help you is in providing questions that directly test whatever hypothesis you are trying to understand. Here you will need help. One I am wrestling with at the moment talks about attitudes to a particular form of certification. Questions around that topic are easy for me to build. But what about those who are not certified? Ignoring the people who are not the direct target of your survey is an easy trap to fall into that can leave all sorts of imponderables. Objectivity is all the more difficult when you are invested in the answer to a problem.
Zoomerang isn’t the only solution out there but so far it is the only one that provides enough help for me to concentrate on what matters – the ‘meat’ questions. Now….if only I could automate the testing of whether the surveys I make are valid I’d be quids in.
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- Customer Survey Design and NPS Measures (customerthink.com)
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