The Survey – Good Idea or Not?

In my last blog posting, I suggested a survey be developed and given to clients (those that use our testing services). Leanne and Mike Mix offered this comment on their FranConnect “Survey – Your Ideas” forum posting:

Leanne and Mike Mix: The trip sounds like a good, and relatively low cost, way to get responses and drive excellent customer service. An idea directly tied to the client (as opposed to the client's employee/participant) is to effectively manage their program; i.e. easy and accurate account setup, timely coordination of information, simple a/r process, etc. To that end it would be very helpful for new franchisees to have a proven process to follow. Maybe John's initial training could cover this along with a simple procedure to use. The effectiveness could be measured with a survey and perhaps the same type of trip as a prize for all who respond. This approach could allow us to measure the satisfaction of the decision makers as well as impart to them that we are interested and striving for world class customer satisfaction.

I couldn’t agree more. The key is low cost, easy to use and accurate data collection and analysis. If a survey is difficult to implement, complicated to administer or too expensive, the process may start with all of the intentions of a good idea but will ‘peter out’ over time. Then this good idea becomes one of the many that end up in the ditch along side of the ‘Yellow Brick Road of Good Ideas’.

What are your thoughts? If you have any input, post them on the FranConnect Sales: “Survey – Your Ideas” forum.