Surveys

One of the most inspired marketing strategies never pursued by my company was their "voice of the customer" initiative. The person driving the project left almost as soon as it was out of the box and no one else seems as drawn to it as I was. Unfortunately it is not my area of the company.

The gist of it was pretty easy... ask the customer what they want before you decide what to sell. It sounds easy but is not the way things are done. We tend to work with a single customer on an idea rather than 1000s. We get a product that is perfect for the one person that give the product to for free and no one wants to buy the product.

I love surveys. I know most people hate them and think that they are an inconvenience but how many times do you get frustrated with something and there is no one there to here your gripe?!? I love having an opinion and being asked to share it as opposed to forcing it down someones throat. I take every opportunity to influence my world.

For example about seven years ago Chrysler called and wanted to ask me about my car buying experiences. I was home alone. There was nothing on TV, so why not? They wanted to know.

The only cars I'd ever purchased were Fords. Did it matter what their adds said, no. Did it matter what features were offered, no. Did it matter where the adds were displayed or broadcast, no. What was Ford doing that they weren't? That's easy, 30-ish years before they hired family. I was the lucky recipient of employee discounts. What would it take to get me to consider buying one of their cars? An employee discount might make it possible. A year later every manufacturer under the sun was offering employee discounts. I'm not really taking credit for that, in fact I find it pretty annoying. But I might have played a part in making a change.

The blogger survey link is listed on the dashboard page. Mostly my responses to this survey were "every thing is great" but they did ask for input on new features. Everyone has to have something that they want and can't do or don't know how to do. In my case I want an easy way to copy my blog to a CD or storage device to save forever. This is the closest thing I've had to a diary since I was 18 and the bulk of the kid's childhoods are recorded here. I'd hate to lose that forever but I don't have time to save it little by little. Maybe they'll create a process for me to archive my memories just because I took the time to answer their questions.