Marketing Strategies | How to Start Your Marketing Action Plan – Part 3, Customer Satisfaction Survey

Learn how to start building your Marketing Action Plan with time-tested and proven tips by Laura Woodard. Here we explore why your clients chose you over your competition.

What is it about your business that made your client pick you?

Getting honest feedback and some eye-opening responses from clients.
I Can’t get No…Sat-is-fac-tion! (with apologies to The Rolling Stones)

You’ve begun to flesh out the image of your ideal prospect. Now it’s time to make sure that every shot hits the bulls-eye. Not only do you want to hit the bulls-eye…you want to be sure that you’re using “Silver Bullets.”

You’ve listed the best attributes of your favorite and best customers. Now it’s time to find out WHY they chose you over your competition. What is it about your business that made them pick you? Even more important is finding out what they DON’T like about your operation.

Value of Customer Satisfaction Surveys
One of the surest methods for finding this out is with a customer satisfaction survey. This gives your existing (and previous) customers a chance to tell you what’s right…and, what’s wrong with your business.

The hard part is getting honest feedback. Most people are afraid to deliver bad news. Instead they will tell you what they think you want to hear because they want to avoid confrontation. They don’t like to make waves. There is a way around this. Have the survey done by an anonymous third party. You’ll get honest feedback and some eye-opening responses. A third-party survey eliminates the anxiety that most people feel about offering constructive criticism and gets very honest answers.

When you see the results you will know what aspects of your business to highlight in your presentations. And, even more importantly, you’ll know where your weak spots are and can fix them. This one exercise will put you miles ahead of your competition…and they won’t even know why.

Remember to save this tip with the others. It’s one more arrow in the quiver of your marketing plan.

This is the third installment of a series of teaching videos we filmed several years ago. As a consultant, I’m currently developing a Podcast that will launch on October 2. I thought it would be fun to pull these videos out of my archives in anticipation of the podcast The Webb Works and I are working on. Although I closed GrassRoots Marketing Group, Inc. several years ago, the series of videos truly does help a company think through important marketing tools and tactics that can result in a Marketing Action Plan (MAP) — or the improvement of an existing marketing plan. I hope you enjoy the series as much as Jim, Lou Schuyler and I enjoyed creating them.