5 Ways To Gather Valuable Feedback From Your Online Home Business Customers

Customer service, or knowing what your customers need and want and providing it in a timely fashion

, is the life blood of any online home business. Following up with your current clients and keeping in touch with former customers is a necessary strategy for continued and ongoing success on the web.

A great way to tap into the knowledge base of your clientele is to gather feedback from them on a regular basis. This way you'll know what they're thinking, how their needs and wants are changing and what it will take to keep them happy and satisfied paying customers.

There are several techniques for collecting this information including these 5 tactics you can use at regular intervals throughout the year.

1. Place a customer feedback form directly on your home business website. Devise a list of 5 - 10 short answer questions related to your products and service. You can include a rating system of 1 - 10 with 1 being least satisfied and 10 being happiest with your customer service. At the end of the questionnaire you could leave a space for comments and suggestions of how to improve your website, your products and your service.

2. Invite 10 or 12 of your best customers to participate in a regularly scheduled focus group at different times during the year. During these meetings initiate conversations on different topics related to your home business such as customer service, product delivery and availability, what they would like to see changed or improved upon and any other ideas they may have to present to the group.

You could reward them for their participation by offering a 50% discount on their next purchase or by offering them a buy one get one free coupon or you can pay them out right for their contribution.

3. Creating an online community on your website is also a great way to garner customer opinion. You could login and initiate a discussion about different aspects of your home business among your members or post a questionnaire in the forum and request they fill it out in order to receive a free gift for participating.

4. Email a customer service survey to your list of current customers and former clients to get their opinions and ideas for new products or services. You could construct separate questionnaires for each group to help you ascertain why you're former patrons are no longer paying customers and to find out what it would take to bring them back. You could ask your current clients what it will take to keep them with your home business for the long term

5. Have an annual dinner or customer appreciation party for your patrons. Have contests, prizes and giveaways and mingle with your clients to casually collect feedback about your enterprise and your service. Strategically locate a suggestion box near the main entrance and offer a prize for the best submission to be awarded at the end of the event.

Follow-up, feedback and appreciation are the three commandments for achieving and delivering optimal service for your clients and for ensuring a stable customer base and long term success for your online home based business.

by: Bob Withers

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