Competition has becoming fiercer by the day in our crowded market, where consumers are bombarded with so many alternatives from all possible angles. With so many options available to consumers, simply having a great product or service has shown not to be enough anymore.
Businesses now need to know exactly what their customers really want and how they can deliver better services than competitors.
Gone are the days of assumptions. Products/services delivery with the intention to meet and surpass expectations, thereby staying on top of the market is based on real data from consumer surveys, either directly or via secondary sources.
Consumer survey offer a direct line to the people who matter most to your company’s products/services —your customers, helping you uncover valuable information on their pain points, preferences and emerging trends. The right data can make the difference between staying ahead or falling behind, results have showed.
What Are Consumer Surveys?
Consumer surveys are a powerful tool that businesses use to gather feedbacks DIRECTLY from their target audience. These surveys collect responses from specific demographic or focus group. Such responses help companies to understand what their customers think, feel, want and of course stay abreast of new trends.
By asking direct questions, businesses can gain actionable insights that are critical for product development, marketing, customer satisfaction, brand perception and overall strategy.
Tyes of Consumer Surveys
By Deployment Method
- Online surveys:
About the most popular types of survey, thanks to technology advancement. Simple questions are deployed to respondents online via their mobile device, as email, short message or web based. They are easily deployable and are less expensive. Also, data can be collected and analyzed quickly.
- Paper surveys:
This is when questions are printed on paper and physically distributed to respondents. Paper surveys can be administered everywhere, particularly where there might not be adequate internet connection or the right kind of device aren’t available. But they are more expensive.
- Telephone Surveys:
These are surveys conducted on telephone, via calls or sms. Respondent are asked a set of questions, while the survey administrator write down their responses. It takes a lot of time and can become cumbersome.
- One-to-One interviews:
This is a direct interview method, where researchers talk to respondents one after another. While this give you a real feeling and body language of respondents, its time consuming and quite expensive as respondents will have to be visited one after the other.
The online method
Our emhasis on this post is the online method, which has evidently become the most popular method of survey, allowing companies to reach a large number of people quickly and cost-effectively.
Having a focus groups provide more detailed feedback by gathering a small, diverse group of people to discuss a product or service.
Post-purchase feedback surveys help businesses understand the customer experience after a sale, identifying areas of improvement and ensuring long-term loyalty.
A great example of a survey platform is TOP50 Survey, a Nigerian market research platform that not only conducts surveys across the nation but also helps businesses make informed decisions through detailed insights. It allows for customization, where companies can set their own questions, and take control of the entire process.
This flexibility ensures that businesses can get the exact information they need, quickly and efficiently. Other global platforms like SurveyMonkey also offer similar services, enabling businesses to collect and analyze customer feedback from around the world.
Boosting Sales and Marketing Impact with Surveys
From experience, consumer surveys are more than just a feedback system; they are a strategic pathway to increasing business’s return on investment (ROI).
When a company gather information from its target customer, it naturally become easy to come up with the right marketing strategies, fine-tune and improve products, and build stronger connections with their customers, all of which translate into improved bottom lines.
So, understanding what drives consumer behavior – the real WHY behind their choice and actions allows businesses to optimize outreach, reduce customer churn rates, and boost sales ultimately.
Related researches have shown a clear connection between customer insights from surveys which are acted upon and measurable business growth.
For instance, Forrester Research, a research and advisory company reports that businesses investing in customer experience (CX) initiatives see a significant impact on retention and conversion rates. Forrester’s study revealed that companies that are improving their CX, based on survey data experiences an increase in revenue growth by up to 1.9 times compared to those that didn’t focus on customer feedback. This demonstrates the direct financial benefits of consumer surveys, particularly when it comes to creating data-driven marketing strategies that resonate with customer needs.
Furthermore, a PwC report highlighted that 73% of customers stated that experience is a key factor in purchasing decisions. Similarly, Treasure Data and Forbes Insights found that 74% of consumers are at least somewhat likely to buy based on experience alone. And what better way to get these feedbacks, rather than a survey?
In Nigeria, businesses that have embraced this data-driven approach, such as some FMCG companies like Nestle and Dangote Industries, are continuously outperforming competitors by aligning their product offerings and marketing messages more closely with customer expectations.
Identifying Untapped Market Opportunities with Surveys
By listening to what customers are saying about their needs that are not yet met, businesses can uncover new product ideas and services that meet the consumer demands. So, surveys help companies to pinpoint gaps in the market, enabling them to stay ahead of competitors by offering solutions that no one else is providing.
A prime example is Procter & Gamble (P&G) and its Swiffer, a widely popular cleaning product that has revolutionaries how people clean. Through in-depth consumer surveys, P&G discovered that many customers found traditional mopping inconvenient and cumbersome. They wanted a simpler, more effective way to clean their homes.
This consumer insight revealed a significant gap in the market, which P&G addressed by developing Swiffer, a quick and easy-to-use cleaning tool that has since become a household staple. The success of Swiffer is a testament to the power of leveraging survey data to identify and capitalize on unmet consumer needs.
In Nigeria, a similar approach has proven successful in industries like telecommunications and consumer goods. Consumer feedbacks and yearning by the people revealed a growing demand for a per-second billing system back then, Globacom, which started years behind the two leading telecoms service providers did the seemingly impossible at the time, by offering per second billing.
This was an instant success story and ultimately forced the existing operators to start offering per second billing.
So, consumer surveys have act as a guide for product innovation, providing useful insights that businesses can use to create offerings that meet their audience yearnings.
Improving Product Development with Consumer Feedback
Consumer feedback, which are mostly collected through surveys, are essential in creating or refining products and aligning them more closely with customer needs.
By listening to what consumers truly want, businesses can make informed decisions that lead to better product features, tastes and designs, which directly increases customer satisfaction, and ultimately result to repeat purchase rates. Such insights help companies stay agile, adapting their products to meet evolving demands.
A well-known example is LEGO, which used consumer surveys to improve its product line after realizing that kids were seeking more customizability and adventure-themed sets.
This insight led to the creation of customizable LEGO sets that focused on adventure and exploration. And the effect is a surge of interest from both children and parents. By listening to its consumers, LEGO not only improved its product offerings but also strengthened its market position.
In Nigeria, a verifiable example comes from Indomie Noodles, one of the most recognized food brands in the country. For instance, feedback from the consumers showed a growing desire for spicy flavors and local taste profiles. In response, Indomie launched the “Pepper Chicken” and “Jollof Chicken” variants, which quickly became favorites among its target market. This consumer-driven product innovation increased both sales and brand loyalty, showing how local consumer insights can lead to impactful product development.
Beating Competitors with Surveys
It’s now very crucial to benchmarking competitors, using survey as essential tool to understand how your business measures up against competition in key areas such as customer satisfaction, product features, pricing, and general brand perception. Such exercise provides valuable information into your strengths and weaknesses relative to competitors, and should be used to refine your strategies to stay ahead in a competitive market as we have.
Dangote Cement, one the largest cement producers in Africa easily comes to mind. Through consistent customer and competitor benchmarking surveys, Dangote Cement has been able to assess customer satisfaction regarding product quality, price, and distribution compared to other local and international cement brands.
These surveys revealed that consumers favored Dangote Cement for its superior product quality, despite its slightly higher pricing. It also help to identify certain feature in competitors, such as concrete making. By understanding this competitive advantage, Dangote Cement has maintained a stronghold in the Nigerian market, continuously fine-tuning its distribution and marketing strategies based on customer feedback.
Building Long-Term Customer Loyalty Through Surveys
Recurrent collecting customer feedback through surveys is a powerful way to improve customer experience, build lasting loyalty, and increase retention.
When you understanding customer preferences, pain points, and satisfaction levels, the business can make meaningful improvements that ensure customers to think of alternatives. Moreover, loyal customers are more likely to recommend your brand to others, amplifying your reach through word-of-mouth marketing.
The Amazon brand does this well. Amazon relies heavily on customer surveys to maintain its industry-leading customer service standards. The brand relentless focus on gathering feedback, which enables the company to anticipate customer needs, quickly resolve complains, and innovate based on real consumer input. This strategy has been key to building one of the most loyal customer bases in the world, with a large percentage of customers returning for repeat purchases.
GTBank in Nigeria is quite notable for using customer feedback to drive loyalty. The bank regularly conducts surveys through its multi-channel digital platforms, asking customers about their satisfaction with banking services, the usability of its mobile app, and customer service interactions.
This feedback is then used to improve their digital banking experience, simplify processes, and introduce new features like the 737 service, which allows users to perform banking transactions via USSD codes on mobile phones. These improvements have not only enhanced customer satisfaction but also strengthened GTBank’s reputation as a customer-centric institution.
Other banks have also follow in GTbank footsteps in improving customer’s satisfaction
Steps to Implement a Consumer Surveys
Define Your Survey Objective
Define Your Survey ObjectiveFirst step is to have a definite objective. That is, what you hope to achieve with the survey. Whether it’s understanding customer satisfaction, identifying new product opportunities, or benchmarking your brand against competitors, having a specific goal will influence the kind of questions you ask and from who. Without a definite goal, there wouldn’t be a way to measure achievement.
Segment Your Audience
There are hardly survey or poll for everybody, you will most definitely have a specific target group. This could be by demographics (age, gender), behavior (purchase history), income earnings or geography. Let’s say you’re testing a new product; you might want to survey customers who recently made a purchase in that category. If you are testing a baby product, you will want to target young mothers etc.
Craft Simple, Clear and Relevant Questions
Having a right set of question will surely affect the outcome of your survey. You need to create questions that are easy to understand and directly lead to your objectives. You might want to avoid leading questions, and use a mix of question types, like multiple-choice, rating scales, and open-ended responses. Make sure the length of the survey is reasonable to encourage higher response rates.
Example:
- Multiple Choice: How satisfied are you with our delivery speed?
a) Very satisfied
b) Satisfied
c) Neutral
d) Dissatisfied
e) Very dissatisfied - Rating Scale: On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend our product to a friend?
Choose the Right Survey Platform
Various survey tools and platforms have been developed, focusing on different areas and needs. Tools like TOP50 Survey (a Nigerian survey platform, for both online and paper survey), SurveyMonkey or Qualtrics could be used to distribute your survey. These platforms allow users to easily customize, distribute and analyze data. They also offer different methods for sharing surveys, such as social media, email and sms, so as to reach your target audience. TOP50 Survey specifically offers visual effective charts and infographics for easily readable reports.
Distribute Your Survey
As stated above, distribution could be by mail, social media, sms, depending on where it will be easier to engage the target. It’s also important to choose a distribution method that aligns with how your audience prefers to engage. This could be by sending email surveys to existing customers or promote surveys on your social media platforms to capture a larger audience. Timing is also is also a good factor here. Sending a survey right after a purchase or interaction will often yield more relevant feedback. This is a common practice on many online platforms like Jumia, Konga, Bolt and a few others.
Analyze the Data
Now is the real work of converting the raw data to useful insights. Look for patterns in the data, such as common complaints or suggestions. Segment the results by demographic to uncover key insights, like whether younger customers are more satisfied than older customers, or if specific regions show different preferences, or certain income group etc.
Turn Insights into Action
Use the relevant information gained from the survey to inform your business strategy. If your customers indicate issues with a particular product feature, you need to prioritize improvements in that area. If many respondents’ express interest in a new service, consider adding it to your offerings.
Close the Feedback Loop
Finally, while the aforementioned points have done fair justice to the topic, ensure you don’t forget to follow up with your customers. Its good they know you heard their feedback and highlight steps you’re taking to address their concerns. This not only fosters customer loyalty. It gives them a sense of importance, knowing that they are being heard. This also builds trust in your brand.
I hope you now agree with me that consumer surveys are essential tool for any business looking to gain a competitive edge. By regularly collecting feedback, businesses can identify new opportunities, improve customer satisfaction, and build long-term loyalty, thereby ensuring sustained growth and market leadership.
CMOs and Business Owners: Don’t Fly Blind! Raise the bar, outperform your competitors with actionable insights. Let’s discuss how TOP50 Survey can help surge your performance.
Shoot me a mail before embarking on your next survey, we might be able to help.
