Do This to Start Talking to Your Customers Today
One of my recent issues was about the importance of talking to your customers. Today, I want to give you a very simple and easy way to actually do that.
This is the exact format I used with a client to get over 100 survey responses to open-ended questions and schedule more than 10 customer interviews that have granted us incredibly valuable feedback.
Part 1: Start With a Survey
Most surveys suck. They asks bunch of multiple choice questions that don’t provide any real insight. The value in talking to your customers isn’t just collecting data, it’s hearing the real words they use to describe their problem.
That’s why the survey you send will have at least 80% open-ended questions that can’t be answered with a simple yes or no.
This way, you give your customers a chance to surprise you with their answers rather than confirming what you thought you knew.
How to structure the survey
We’re trying to learn something very specific: what can we do to get more people to buy. For this reason we want to talk to people that have already purchased your product. This guarantees the feedback you get is from people actually in your target market.
That also means we’re going to focus on getting feedback on a few core pieces of your brand:
What the points of friction are
Why people buy
How your offer compares to competitors
What made a customer buy from you
With that, here are 7 questions you can use in a survey:
What’s your first name?
Why did you decide to buy {{ your product }}?
Did you consider any alternatives to our product? If so, which ones?
What doubts and hesitations did you have about {{ your product }} before deciding to purchase?
Which questions did you have, but couldn’t find answers to on our website?
What was your biggest challenge, frustration, or problem in choosing the right product?
Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?
Modify each of these into a question relevant to your brand and load them into a Google Form.
Part 2: setting up customer interviews
Your survey isn’t done yet. You’re missing two important questions:
Would you be open to having a 15 minute call with the {{ your company }} team? We’re trying to create the best products we possibly can and feedback from you, our customer, is critical to doing that.
If yes, what is the best email address to contact you for setting up the call?
Depending on your customers, you can expect 10-20% of the people who fill out the survey to agree to doing a quick interview.
Trying to schedule all of these interviews will be a nightmare so instead, go and create a Calendly account.
Create a 15 minute meeting with availability between set times in the day. I like to do between 11a-2pm because that works for my schedule.
You’ll also want to set up the Calendly + Zoom integration so when a respondent chooses a time, it automatically creates a calendar invite with the Zoom details.
Finally, I’d recommend requiring a phone number on the Calendly form so that you have another way to contact them if they can’t use Zoom.
Here’s the email you can send to customers to set up the interview (modify to fit your brand):
Hey ___, my name’s {{ name }} and I work for {{ your brand }}. Thank you so much for filling out our recent survey! You had mentioned that you’d be open to getting on a quick 15 minute call with us. If you’re still up for that I’d love to get on a call either next week or the following.
Instead of trying to go back and forth to find a time that works I created this super simple scheduling form that allows you to pick a time that works best for you: {{ insert Calendly link }}If you don’t have time, no worries! I really appreciate all your help!
As customers choose their times, be sure to reach out to them at least 24 hours in advance to confirm the meeting and how they want to be contacted. Ask if Zoom works for them or if you should call them directly.
Conducting the interviews
Once you have scheduled interviews the question is always, what do you ask?
Don’t over complicate things. Go back to the survey results and simply dig in a little bit deeper on each question.
One simple question I like to ask is: “in the survey you said ____, could you elaborate on that for me?” Then let them talk.
Follow any tangents, don’t cut them off to try and hit a specific set of questions, and just let your curiosity lead the conversation.
Most importantly, record the conversations so you can listen to them back. Then transcribe them with Otter so you can learn what words they’re using. You’ll learn more than you expect.
Part 3: incentivizing respondents
One tough question is always: how do we incentivize people to respond?
I like to think of it as offering a one-time promotion in return for the feedback. If you’ve run 20% off promotions for a campaign, then use a 20% off coupon as the incentive. You’ll get the benefit of generating new sales and getting feedback.
If you sell a high ticket product the coupon may not work. But, offering someone $100 off an expensive product that they likely already own isn’t much of an incentive. Instead, offer something like an Amazon gift card for $10. Or better yet, offer to donate $10 to a charity of their choice.
If you can’t afford to offer an incentive, don’t! Your best customers are probably willing to do it for free. Just know you’re going to miss out on a lot of potential respondents.
Part 4: analyzing results
Analyzing the results of your survey and interviews is a post for another day. For now, just read all of the responses and write down all of the things you’ve learned. Then go through your entire site with those new learnings in mind to find areas where your site isn’t delivering on the expectations of your customers.
You’ll have plenty of new insights to start executing on before trying to systematically analyze the results.
Trust me.
That’s all, folks
Alright, that’s it for this issue! If you enjoyed it, please retweet the Twitter thread: