|  Customer Research
by Daniel Janal Want to find out what your customers are thinking? You could hire a company specializing in market research and focus groups—and spend a fortune—or you could go to the Web and get great information for free. "People will tell you the most amazing things about themselves—if you ask them," says Walter Thames, an executive with Revnet, whose Unity Mail program is one of the leaders in helping companies automate e-mail operations. One client, the New York Yankees, asks all sorts of demographic questions to people who visit its Web site and subscribe to a free newsletter. Try it yourself at http://www.yankees.com.But you don't have to run a company with a $100 million payroll to use Unity Mail or any other number of tactics on the Web. Unity Mail allows businesses of any size to ask any number of questions of its targeted audience and compile the results. If you are the Yankees, you might want to know
people's reactions to parking at the stadium, ticket prices, or food preferences. If you are like me, you might want to know where your customers live, so I can let them know when I'll be in town and available for consulting. Of course, you can ask them anything! Respect your customer: Make your questionnaire short; make it worth the visitor's while; and promise to protect privacy. How to collect information:
Use your Web site, outbound and inbound e-mail, and
Web tools such as Placeware or Netmeeting.What¥s your favorite feedback tool? Let me know and I'll relate the tips in a future column. R-e-s-p-e-c-t One bit of warning: Respect your customer. People don't go on the Web to fill out questionnaires. When was the last time you logged on and said, "I guess I'll surf over to some
company site and answer some questions." You have to do at least three things to get quality feedback.- Make it worthwhile to fill out the form.
What's in it for them? Offer them a free subscription to your on-line newsletter or a tip of the day. These are great tools for keeping your name in front of your clients on a regular basis. One of my favorite newsletters is Wally Bock's Monday Memo, which offers his insights into management issues. Get your free copy at
http://www.bockinfo.com.Keep the questionnaires short. How many questions are too many? No one knows. No one has done any research on this topic. I find that you can get what you really need to know in seven questions (name, e-mail, phone, address, job title, purchasing
power, and how they use your product). Different companies will have different numbers of questions. Business to business questionnaires might get away with more questions than a consumer company can. Don't blow this by asking questions people would never answer, such as "What is your family's net income?" Would you tell me the answer if we were at a conference? No way! They won't tell you on-line, either. And they just might bail out of the questionnaire if you ask them.
Protect their privacy. Always assure customers that you won't sell their names or give away their private information. I'm a big advocate of protecting your privacy against identity theft, which is one of the fastest growing crimes in America and one of the most dangerous. Read my book, Risky Business: Protect Your Business from Being Conned, Stalked or Blackmailed on the Web for more information on this topic. Collecting from customers Let's look at how we can collect information from our customers.- Web site.
Place a form on your Web site's main page, or product page, and ask people to help you shape the next version of the product. Let them know they are contributing to the greater good, and they will benefit,
as well. They might tell you that the instructions are hard to follow—that's the reason they are on your Web site in the first place! So, now you know you have to make the manual more readable or design the product to be more intuitive.
You might find your customer support costs decline and customer satisfaction increase as a result. I'm playing around with a new digital video camera, and I certainly would like to tell the company a thing or two
about where to place the controls! Notice, I do like the product, but it could be made better and I want the company to know. If I didn't like the product, I would have returned it. How many of your customers feel the same way? They like you and want to continue doing business with you—if only you made it easier! - Outbound e-mail.
Use your mailing lists to ask a few questions. I've seen wine companies ask their customers by e-mail how much they would pay for
different varieties and grades of wines. This information can be vital in determining customers' price resistances. By finding the right price, you can increase your profits without cutting your market share. - Inbound e-mail.
Your customers are sending you pieces of gold every time they send you e-mail. They are telling you what they like and don't like about your product or service. But how many of us really read those e-mails?
At very large companies, most customer e-mail is deleted without being read or responded to, according to a survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal. And I'm sure that at small companies, we look at those types of letters as assaults to our egos and dismiss the writers as cranks. However, if we look at those e-mails as focus group information from people who want to make our products better, we just might be able to improve our products.
How many times have you received e-mails from "cranks who have nothing better to do" who tell you about broken links, typos, and out of date phone numbers? I've gotten letters like these and gotten upset—until I realized they were right! I needed to fix these things immediately. How many people saw these errors and never told me? How many prospects might have hired me but didn't because of a nitty typo? Now, I thank these people who take the time to point out my
flaws. You should, too. Customer research shows that people who hate your product tell 11 people; people who like your product tell three people. Moral of the story? There's gold in e-mail. Treat it wisely. - Web tools.
Products such as Placeware,
http://www.placeware.com
, let you present a Power Point slide show over the Web, complete with voice narration, to your focus group. Interactive elements let you get instant feedback. For example, show them the product in three colors and ask which one is their favorite. In seconds, you'll see the results. You can test prices, product mixes—almost anything—and get feedback in real time.
Since programs such as Placeware can be pricey, you can also just set up some temporary Web pages to
show people choices and have them respond via e-mail or an instant messenger such as ICQ. Or, try a free collaboration program such as Microsoft NetMeeting, which lets you share your screen (and your voice) with others through the Web. Privacy Policy When you start collecting personal information, it gets more and more important to make sure you post a clear "privacy
policy" on your site. Tell people how you're going to use the information, and perhaps more important, how you're not going to use it. You can find lots of privacy statements on major sites—and many major advertisers are now saying they won't advertise on sites that don't have statements like these. Most large sites now have privacy policies linked right from their home pages (sometimes combined with their legal statements. eFuse's privacy policy is simple—we never give
your info to anyone outside the company. Period. That's pretty simple and clear.What's your favorite feedback tool? Let me know what you learned by using those tools and I'll post the replies in an article in the future! About the author  Daniel Janal is the author of Online Marketing Handbook and is a popular speaker and consultant who was on the PR team that launched America Online and has consulted with IBM, Reader's Digest, Health4Her.com, and many others. You can reach him at dan@janal.com or visit his Web site at http://www.janal.com.
Illustration: Ingo Fast's Technology at www.artville.com
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