It is impossible to underestimate the power of public opinion nowadays. Word of mouth is extremely important and intelligent business people are beginning to realise that trying to keep the trend in mind when mapping out their business strategies.

No matter how much you pay the highly acclaimed star to smile from colourful banners advertising your products, contemporary customers may be more likely to cash in on them if they have confidence in the quality of the products and customer services, testified in the ever popular online customer forums, price comparison sites, blogs and miniblogs. With the global power of the Internet anyone can write a review of any product or service, and recent research shows that customer opinions often matter more than company advertising. With a lot of active customers willing to express their views on products and services, it is somewhat easier to get to know what they are thinking. Online customer surveys can be a great way to do that.

Who is buying?

Online customer surveys are a good way to make you aware of customers’ aspirations, wishes, likes and dislikes. When you are conducting a survey you need to find out a couple of things. First of all, it is important to know who your customers are. Studying your target audience closely can tell you how you can tailor your campaigns in order to come up to their expectations. So customer surveys tell you who is buying from you, who your customers are in terms of age and gender, educational and professional background, location and income, lifestyle and spending patterns. By knowing your customers better you may learn what commercial messages they are likely to respond to, what they think of you as a business, how they value your company when compared to competitors, etc. This may help you be more receptive to their wishes and tailor your business model accordingly.

How are they buying?

Online customer surveys may also help you understand how your customers are buying products and services, how they make purchasing decisions, how much they value your products, how they grade customer services, etc. Learning more about spending patterns of prospective and existing customers can help you personalise your campaign and increase sales.

Why are they buying?

There are different reasons why prospective clients become dedicated customers. Some are enticed by pricing, great delivery options, easy-to-navigate websites, clear descriptions, virtual customisation tools, and so on. Customer surveys may help you discover the reasons behind your customers’ purchases. But if you only focus on positive questions, the survey will only applaud your efforts without giving you a chance to make any tangible improvements. If you ask your customers whether they ever wanted to buy something but failed to do so, it is important to know why. Some of them may be unsatisfied with the delivery rates or delivery times. At times customers cannot make an order because their province or territory is not on your list of destinations, which may be easy to fix. In other cases, there may be nothing you can do about complaints directly but you can change the wording of your terms and conditions to explain your policies and make them seem more reasonable.

It is important to ask the hard questions of what people don’t like about your business, website, customer service, etc. Personalising online customer surveys to create an atmosphere in which customers can be truly honest is vital in generating responses that are highly productive for your business.