Thanks to polling services, the ability to reach out to existing or prospective customers is just a few clicks away, allowing businesses to interact directly with the market. Customer surveys, in particular, can be an information goldmine. Tapping into the minds of those who are willing to pay for the service or product you provide is a sure way to acquire more like-minded customers.

Customer survey data is an invaluable tool for making business decisions, better understanding customer pain points, and achieving product or service innovation. At TSheets, we thrive on customer surveys and have found a few key ways they improve our business.

1. Surveys Can Help You Customize Your Product

For TSheets, GPS tracking in the workplace is a hot potato. What better way to find out what employees think than asking them directly, right? We expected them to raise privacy concerns and even push back altogether on the technology. But to make data-driven decisions means being objective, even when the data doesn’t agree with us.

But to our surprise, more than half of the employees who have used GPS at work described the experience as positive, with just 4 percent giving the tech a thumbs-down. Respondents also told us how they generally don’t think twice about sharing location data as long as they trust the app or know exactly how the collected information will be used. So what did we walk away with? Transparency and clear messaging are key.

2. Surveys Can Help You Customize Your Service

Harvard Business School found that 95 percent of new products fail, so it’s suddenly clear how 1 in 5 businesses fail in the first year. The TSheets customer service team is world-class for many reasons. Among those reasons, in December 2018, the service team updated their chat feature because our customers said they’re often multitaskers who do not have the luxury of calling in. But they can always open another browser window while doing everything else. Some can even type faster than they can speak! In addition to a new chat system, customers can now share screenshots with the service team to better illustrate the hurdle they’re trying to overcome.

In 2018 alone, TSheets tackled over 182,000 chats. That’s almost 500 conversations daily. With a typical 12-second response time, we have saved customers more than 36,000 hours in administrative work. The lesson here is simple: When you listen to your customers, things can only get better, always.

3. Surveys Can Help You Understand Your Customers Beyond Their Businesses

At the end of the day, our customers are more than an account number or a name on the screen. They love us because we genuinely care, especially when they tell us employee retention keeps them up at night, they work at least 50 hours a week, vacation and sick days are a rarity, and family time is a common casualty.

By knowing pain points beyond their businesses, we have the opportunity to tweak our offerings using data that is unique to our customers. From content to address their concerns to tips and tricks to best use our product based on customized needs, we amplify their faith in what we do, as well our credibility as a top business resource.

An Unmatched Customer Experience

Just a decade ago, many small businesses still had to resort to direct mail or email to survey customers. Today, the same technology previously reserved for the big players is readily available for businesses of all sizes. And just as technology has evolved, so must businesses, to ensure the best customer experience from start to finish.

Customer experience is the culmination of all the points we’ve covered so far, from in-product messaging to product innovation and customer profiling. It is, in essence, how your customers see your business treating them, and it’s crucial to the success of your business.

It has been found that customers are willing to pay between 13 and 18 percent more for what they perceive to be luxury or indulgent service, based on the customer experience. In fact, customer experience is expected to overtake price and product. So before making your next business decision, be sure to involve your customers and listen to what they have to say.

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Author Bio

Prior to joining the copywriting team at TSheets by QuickBooks, Dottie Chong spent 15 years in marketing communications and content management focused on driving engagement and brand affinity. When no one is watching, she indulges in K-pop, knitting, and karaoke, all at the same time.