No matter where you are up to within your Business Operations, for example just thinking of starting a business or been in Business for 10 + years, research and surveys can be beneficial for your Business.
By being able to survey your potential clients, current client, Past clients, it can help you understand the market place better, to ensure you are offering the right service/product for the Marketplace, and knowing people will buy what you are offering is an important tool for any Business to be Successful.
One example I like to give is in 2011, I moved to a new area, I spoke to many Business owners, Business groups, Community members, about a service I was going to introduce to the area, which was Security advice, as I am a Licensed Security Advisor in Victoria, and whilst many of the Business owners were slightly confused on what the service actually was, which I was able to explain, they all after some thinking all believed it was something the area required, as there were no other service providers in the area providing the service, which at the time I thought was great, however, I forgot to ask the second question, would you pay for the service either now or when you required advice. Had I asked this question at the time, I would have found out there was not the actually required for the service in the area, as people are not prepared to pay for advice, they would rather install an Alarm system or Camera system thinking that will solve their problems.
A survey or research and asking the right questions, to the right people, would have solved my problems at the time, and given me a better understanding of the new area I moved into, and the expectations of the local Marketplace at the time.
Market Research
Doing the right Market research can help you understand the Marketplace and what they are looking for from a Service or Product Provider.
One way we can do this is we can consider a new product or service we wish to introduce for our Business so we can grow our own Businesses, and we can survey our current clients, to gauge an indication on whether they will want the service/product or not, and if so what price will they be prepared to pay for it, this can then allow us to decide whether it is worth introducing the new service/product or not.
We can also survey past clients, or potential clients through our Email Lists, or Facebook pages, and see whether anyone else is interested in the new Services/ Products you are planning on introducing.
The second way we might do it is we might survey our past, current, and potential clients, and ask what Service /products can they not find, or they would like to find to help them grow their own business, once we know this then we might be able to find this product, or provide this service either ourselves, or through a contractor, and we can work out how to introduce and implement the new service or product to help them out, which is another way of working out what services/products we can add to our range.
Quality Assurance
Quality control of any product or service is important, Surveying your current clients and your past clients can help ensure you are providing a good service or product.
This way you can ensure your service/product is meeting the requirements of the clients and therefore the MarketPlace, as if they are not meeting the requirements of the MarketPlace, then there is a good chance you won’t sell anything, and therefore your business will die in the short term.
Another part of Quality Assurance is your customer service, if you are not providing good customer service, in regards to selling your product or service, or the after-sales service, then there is a good chance your business won’t succeed either, as these days with Social media, etc, bad reviews on your Social Media pages can ruin your business in a very short time. Although we all know every business will get the odd bad review which is not a problem, as it is more the way you respond to a negative review, rather than the review itself, unless there are Multiple negative reviews in a short time, they are hard to recover from.
Staff Surveys
If you employ staff, then surveying your staff can be beneficial, for example knowing how they are feeling within the Business can help you better understand how your staff is thinking, how they think about the company, understanding the culture of the company you are setting.
Surveys can help you understand the Strengths and Weaknesses of your staff and what training they may need to help improve the employee and therefore might improve your overall business operations.
Industry-Based
Surveys of business owners or community members can be great to understand what people think of your particular industry and can be great to improve your industry if that is one of your goals.
Learning more about your industry or other industries can be beneficial especially for mentors, coaches, Advisors, etc, but also suitable for others to understand the industry or at times their competition.
Summary.
As you can see above surveys or researching can be beneficial for your business, I have only listed a couple of ways, there would be which could be industry-based, on how you can use research for your business.
If you want to know how surveys can assist your business, feel free to message me on Facebook, email at sales@sghbusiness.com.au, and we can discuss it from there.
