How do you know how you’re doing? Sometimes your clients will go out of their way to let you know but the easier you make it for them to give you valuable feedback, the more likely it is that your clients will let you know how you’re doing.
Your business exists to meet your customer’s needs and the better you can meet those needs the more successful your business will become. Having a record of your clients experiences with your company over time will give you perspective on your performance and direction on how you can improve to become more profitable.
There are two very simple ways you can get valuable feedback from your clients: create a printed comment card and/or build a comment form for your website. Both these solutions make it simple for your customer to let you know how you’re doing and they’re easy for you too.
A successful comment card or comment form doesn’t just collect random information – it’s really designed to answer specific questions, in this case how well your business meets your customers needs based on a statistical sampling of your clients.
You don’t want your comment card or form to take more than about 5 minutes to fill out but at the very least your comment card or form should include space for the date, customer contact information, and a section for open comments.
Check boxes for statements or category rankings are much quicker to fill out for the customer and allow for simple evaluation on your end.
If you want to be able to categorize your hair salon clients, for example, to market additional products or services you may ask:
Which of the following statements best describe you?
[ ] I follow the latest trends and I describe exactly what I want.
[ ] I take my hair stylists’ advice to keep my look current.
[ ] I’ve got the look I want and need my stylist to maintain it.
[ ] I’m OK with a little change; I want to update my hairstyle but only now and then.
Armed with the answers to these questions you’d be able to target future sales of highest fashion, more risque products and styles to those who identify with the first statement; and the new, but more traditional, products and styles to those who identify with the second statement.
Your comment card or comment form can provide you with the answers to anything you might be wondering about your business, you only have to ask, make it fast and easy to answer, and if indicated by the results, respond with appropriate changes to your business.