Building A Feedback Loop Into The Tactical Business Plan

Savvy business people are finding that the way to be nimble in the marketplace is to build a continuous feedback loop into several places within their tactical business plan.

SurveyRock offers some of the ways that surveys can improve the efficiency, effectiveness and profitability of your business:

Get Customer Feedback

One of the most popular uses of surveys is as a yardstick for customer satisfaction. Annual, semiannual or quarterly surveys serve as a barometer of your business’ health and allow you to monitor your performance over time. In addition, many businesses send out satisfaction surveys after each customer transaction, using the survey as a way to judge the effectiveness of individual employees and the product itself.

Test the Concept

Expanding your audience to include prospects allows you to check the receptivity of the market to a product enhancement or a new offering. Sending a survey to two segments – a portion of your customers and a portion of your prospects – provides visibility into whether prospects require different messaging or education than was required to win your current set of customers.

Check Your Vendors

Surveys can help evaluate which vendors are best equipped to deliver the raw materials required to fulfill your product plan. You can send out a survey asking about their shortest lead-time, their standard shipping terms, etc. By downloading their answers into a spreadsheet, you can sort your vendors by those most capable of meeting your new requirements for faster shipping or expanded capacity.

Plan and Evaluate Your Event

A survey is an easy way to collect multiple data points from a large group of people. Those in Marketing and Event Planning departments can easily deploy surveys to ask representatives about their arrival times to a trade show, their requested shifts, etc. and then use that information to plan their event. Afterward, consider deploying a separate survey to ask the representatives for their opinion on the value of the tradeshow, the number of sales attributed to it, and whether they plan to attend next year.

Gauge Employee Satisfaction

Online surveys are an ideal mechanism for soliciting employee feedback, providing the anonymity that is essential to candid feedback.

Share Best Practices

Guidance is golden and online surveys are an effective way to gather wisdom that can’t be found elsewhere. A quick survey on a how to handle a difficult business question generates responses that can be directly put into practice.

Get It On Your Calendar

Give yourself enough lead time to really learn what the survey reveals: too frequently surveys are done at the last minute, which makes it impossible to act on the insight. In addition to a quarterly customer satisfaction survey, consider sending surveys using this rotation:

• Operational surveys after each transaction
• Prior to regularly scheduled tradeshows and events
• Marketing concept tests as product development dictates
• Quarterly employee reviews
• Quarterly vendor surveys
• Semi-annual product releases
• Annual employee satisfaction surveys
• Benefit queries before changes in annual plans

Survey Deployment

There are several ways to deploy your surveys and each method has its own advantages. A one-time email broadcast to your entire customer or prospect base is a thorough way to communicate. If you host your survey on your Website, you send a signal to prospects, customers and vendors that you are constantly listening to them and receptive to feedback.

Building a real-time feedback loop into a number of sections of your annual business plan can provide you with a way to be nimble – and knowledgeable – in your operations. Examine your calendar and your plan and ask yourself: would it help to test this concept or gather more information?