Since 1999, Zoomerang has provided website owners and businesses with professional online survey tools. Not only is this a great way for a business to connect with its customers (and potential customers), but many businesses also use surveys and polls internally to gain feedback from employees and partners.
According to Alex Terry, general manager of Zoomerang, there are a number of ways ecommerce businesses can use online surveys to connect with their marketplace and make better business decisions. "One of the more popular types of ecommerce surveys is for customer satisfaction," said Terry. "Usually this is an automated survey that an ecommerce business would send after a customer has been served."
It's important to remember that most customers will appreciate being asked for an opinion. If you ask a customer to provide an opinion, Terry recommends that you follow-up on the comments as part of the customer satisfaction process.
From Ecommerce Surveys to PollsFor the most part, a poll can be considered a slimmed-down version of a survey, but the data and information an ecommerce business owner obtains from each type of communication differs.
With a survey you can go a bit more in-depth about a particular topic and ask a series of questions you can use to do a number of things, like evaluate your product quality, guide future product development or even just to boost your customer relations and satisfaction.
According to Terry, polls are simpler to create but they are directional in nature. You can really only focus on one specific point. Also, he said that polls are a great way to add entertainment or value to your website.
When you produce poll results and summaries on your ecommerce website or blog, you also provide fresh content and, if interesting enough, those poll results will give customers a reason to revisit your site to check for the responses.
"Polls are a great way to drive awareness for an event or for e-tailers to get ahead of trends," said Terry. "It can help you see trends in advance and make better business decisions," he continued.
For example, an online retailer could poll consumers early to vote for their favorite Halloween costume theme. Looking through those poll results can help you make better product buying decisions to ensure you have sufficient stock to see you through that seasonal buying trend.
Using Ecommerce Survey Data and ReportsSmall business ecommerce site owners need the capability to pull the online survey data into reports that provide a clear picture of what your customers think. Zoomerang, for example, offers reporting that gives retailers analytics and reporting based on the survey or poll answers.
The surveys can be designed however you like to obtain specific data. As customers complete the survey, built-in analysis tools provide you with automatically updated cross-tabulation, filtering, tag clouds and comparison reports.
Terry suggested that businesses use the survey data to help guide business decision-making. You could also use the insights provided in the reports to create charts and graphs that can be used for business presentations and marketing tasks.
Poll data is a good source for analysis. Using polls you can break the questions down by geographic location or gender to gain valuable insight as to who your customers are.
How Social Media Changes Ecommerce SurveysSocial media has crept into many facets of ecommerce business, right from digital marketing to how and where you can reach out to your consumers online. In the world of online polls and surveys, Terry says social media is also making waves.
Zoomerang currently connects to most popular social media networks, including Facebook and Twitter, and Terry said he has seen client success with social media surveys and polls.
Integrating social media into the poll platform lets businesses connect with customers on their social network of choice, and it also saves time because you can immediately deploy the over the social networks you're connected to. You can also embed the poll on your site, in popular blogs (including Blogger and WordPress) or send it out via email.
7 Tips for Ecommerce Surveys and PollsWhen creating online surveys and polls for your ecommerce site there are a number of things to keep in mind to help make your online survey interesting for consumers -- and also to help you to obtain important customer information.
Alex Terry offered the following tips for ecommerce business owners who plan to incorporate surveys or polls into their business plan:
Give back to your customers. Don't just post polls and sell all the time. Share your survey or poll answers with customers who participate or visit your site.Make intelligent follow-ups a part of the survey process. Enable customers to opt-in to hear more from you about the specific topic in the poll. This lets you respond to the survey answers provided.If your business process or product changes based on survey results, be sure to let customers know their input was a direct factor in making the change.Customers like to see results and will visit your site looking for answers to polls they have participated in. Make sure you let them see recent results.Use your data to write about the topics in your surveys and polls on your blog (or website). This data will help you create new, fresh content for your site.For best results, avoid surveys that require more than ten minutes of the customer's time unless you have a specific marketing campaign the survey is related to -- or you offer an incentive for completing the survey.Asking for personal information can be a turn-off. If these types of questions are a part of your survey objectives be sure to keep those questions near the end of the survey. Some companies provide a quick survey and then offer an incentive for the customer to provide personal information, such as a name, gender, age, or email address.Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.
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