Nothing is more important in developing winning business strategies than being able to focus your communications on key insights that target your customer’s needs, wants and expectations. The ability to gain these insights has taken giant leaps forward in the past few years. And perhaps, more importantly, the cost of getting this information has dropped dramatically. It’s a great time to take advantage of this emerging technology.

While many companies talk about customer focus, the reality is that even some of the most sophisticated have scant knowledge of their customer and prospect base. But the most successful companies regularly probe the customer psyche in an effort to understand what drives buying behavior.

They do it by taking advantage of new and inexpensive internet-based research tools. You’ll find a few of the major companies, along with their Web site addresses listed at the end of this article.

One of the keys to excellence and high performance in any organization is customer focus. Knowing what your customer wants, what motivates them, and what drives their buying behavior are keys to success in any type of business. Through research knowledge, you can tailor products and services accordingly, as well as educate customers about the ways your company and your products and services can fulfill their needs and expectations.

Establish research goals. For example, questions you may want answered are: What is the potential market for high efficiency heating equipment in your market area? Is there a desire for evening service calls in your market? What are customer satisfaction levels? Why did a customer leave you? Why do customers stay with you? Do customers want a maintenance agreement? How old is the equipment in their home? How long have they lived there? Do they have children, allergies, or animals in the house, etc?

Design the questionnaire. Ten to twelve questions is best. Use a combination of open ended, numeric, rating scale, and multiple-choice questions. Remember that every question is measuring something, so you need to keep each one very clear and pointed. Simply asking a question a certain way can lead to biased answers. For example, if you want to find out what a customer thinks about their current indoor air quality, a question worded the following way leads your customer to answer yes, and may not accurately reflect the information you’re seeking.

Do you agree that poor indoor air quality affects your family’s/employees’ health? Yes/No

A better question would be:

Are you concerned about your home’s/business’ indoor air quality? Yes/No

The survey Web sites listed on page 8 all have templates available to help you develop the appropriate types of questions for the information you’re seeking.

Determine the sample and the sample size. Your sample is the group of people you choose to target with your survey. It might be your entire customer database, or it might be that you want to survey only purchasers of new equipment within the last three years or customers you’ve only done service work for within the last twelve months. Once you know which group you want to gain insight on, you need to decide whether to survey all of them, or a portion of them.

Your sample size is the number of people you choose to receive your survey. Most often a random selection of names is used. This can be as simple as going through your customer database and selecting every 10th person. Or by pulling one of the groups mentioned above and then sending your survey to every 5th person, or to the entire group, depending on how large it is.

More is not necessarily better with regard to the number of people. Accurate, projectable samples can be done with as few as 100 names. Typically; however, 250, 500, or 1,000 names are used for a survey sample. Increasing the sample size only increases precision to a point. For example, increasing the sample size from 250 to 1,000 doubles precision but no more. The law of diminishing returns kicks in after that.

Choose your delivery method. Will you use an electronic delivery format, mail or a combination of both? Younger customers will probably opt for electronic delivery (assuming of course that you’ve been collecting e-mail addresses), while older customers may prefer mail — give them what they want.

Design your Questionnaire. Use a design that fits with regard to layout and graphics. Allow for Don’t Know, Not Applicable, Other or None on the multiple choice responses.

Analyze the data. As you receive completed surveys, the information can be tabulated into Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint slides, tables, charts and graphs. After you compile these results, take the time to analyze the information and take advantage of what you have learned.

When developing a survey keep in mind some of the following general considerations:

• Design a survey that gives you the information you need without being too long. Be sure to include a brief welcome message or cover letter stating the reason for the survey.

• Include a label on mailed surveys with the customers name and address. (Don’t trust that you’ll be able to read their hand writing.) This is considered an open study because the recipient will know you can view their name and answers, and, as such, it’s a safe bet that the survey returns will provide several dozen leads for you to follow up on. In a “blind” study, you only get the person’s answers; names are not provided.

• Use an incentive to increase a person’s willingness to respond. Explain the incentive up front. For example, state that by completing and submitting the survey by X date they will be entered into a drawing for a free precision a/c and furnace tune up. Be sure to publicize the winner, on your Web site and or in your e-newsletter.

Sales and marketing communications is all about how you engage your customers with your brand and product offerings. By developing a customer- focused organization with continual feedback, through research and all the other forms of customer contact that are used by your employees, you will increase the effectiveness of your communications, as well as your market share and profits.

Here are some of the companies you can check for the services discussed in this article:

SurveyMonkey.com

This is an online tool that helps you create and publish electronic custom surveys. With the help of a survey wizard, you select the types of questions and answer choices. You can track survey responses, as well as who responds so you can send reminders to people to participate. Your data can be viewed using real-time graphs and charts, as well as by raw data which you can download for further analysis through Excel or some other statistical software.

SurveyShare.com

Internet service that lets you create and conduct online or e-mail surveys. You can design your own survey, or choose from a library of templates. You can view customizable charts and graphs to help you analyze your data or you can access and download your results in real time and analyze the data using your own statistical software. (All responses are anonymous, unless one of your survey questions asks for contact information.)

QuestionPro.com

Web-based service that allows you to conduct online or e-mail surveys, such as customer satisfaction surveys, customer loyalty or retention measurement surveys, and employee satisfaction surveys, among others. You can take advantage of customizable survey templates as well as customizable analysis tools.

Zoomerang.com

Web-based tool that provides a number of templates for quickly creating online, e-mail and even text-based mobile surveys. You can customize how you view your data, and you have access to online survey experts for help in survey creation or analysis. Each of these services provides a level of access that is free to use. For more advanced tools, there are various additional fees.