The Art of the Customer Surveys

As a small business owner, you’re probably concerned about what your customers think of you, and many of you have done, or would like to do, customer surveys. A buddy of mine, Dave Wanetick, shared some interesting thoughts about customer surveys. He is the managing director of IncreMental Advantage.

• Accurate reads on customer thoughts are nearly impossible. Responses can be swayed by just one word or even the order in which the questions are asked. Some have compared trying to read customer sentiments to the soothsayers of yesteryear who tried to divine meaning from chicken entrails. Consider how one word conjures up drastically different recollections in this real-world exchange:

  Lawyer to Witness: How fast was the car traveling before it ran into a telephone pole?

  Witness: Forty-five miles per hour.

  Lawyer to Witness: How fast was the car traveling before it smashed into the telephone pole?

  Witness: Sixty-five miles per hour.

• Depending on who is responding to the survey and in what setting, the results can change. Many survey respondents, for example, are self-selecting, which skews the results. Sometimes asking the same people the same question at different times of the day—for example, before or after a meal—will yield different responses.

   

http://blogs.openforum.com/2008/09/30/the-art-of-the-customer-surveys/

Monitoring the staff pays off

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/03/smallbusiness/surveillance.fsb/index.htm?postversion=2008100313

ERIE, COLO. (Fortune Small Business) — Ryan Elmore used to trust that his employees were hard at work after he left his neighborhood restaurant in Erie, Colo. Then, 18 months ago, he decided to spy on them.

Elmore, 30, installed networked cameras on the premises and started using an online service that let him view the action at his eatery. The video was highly revealing. The restaurant manager on duty went home minutes after Elmore left. Servers sat at tables, sent text messages on their cellphones, and gave free meals to friends. Cooks took multiple cigarette breaks each hour and cut corners making his signature fettuccine Alfredo.

“I couldn’t believe it,” says Elmore. “You may trust your employees, but you don’t know what happens when you walk out that door.”

Now the 20 workers at Elmore’s restaurant, Pepper Jack’s Neighborhood Grill, know the boss is watching, even if he is at home. Elmore can log in online, view a receipt, and call up the video of that transaction. He can see whether employees cleaned the restaurant when they said they would. He knows whether they’re smiling at customers. And if a customer’s order arrives at the table late or if employees are helping themselves to meals, Elmore sees it.

Coupon Use Rises as Economy Falls

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/09/coupons/index.html

(CNN) — The rising price of consumer goods is driving shoppers from all walks of life to use coupons for food, beauty aids and pharmacy products at an increasing rate, according to some of the country’s largest purveyors of manufacturers’ coupons.

While people may be looking to spend less, they aren’t necessarily cutting back on necessities or luxuries. Instead, consumers are hunting for deals on where to dry-clean their clothes, get their oil changed or take the family out to dinner, said MaryAnn Rivers, CEO of Entertainment Publications, which publishes community-based coupon books and Web sites.

Rivers said the company’s site has seen a 198 percent increase in the use of coupons for day-to-day necessities and a 63 percent increase in the use of coupons for casual or “quick-serve” meals since last year.