Persuasion: getting customers to take surveys

Many companies want customers to take customer satisfaction or sales surveys. The companies politely ask if customers would be willing to take the surveys, and customers often answer "no". Getting customers to answer "yes" is the first crucial step to obtaining feedback on performance.

A major reason customers answer "no" is that companies have given customers no positive incentive to say "yes". In other words, in exchange for answering a long series of often confusing questions, the customer gets nothing out of it for his time.
Companies who want more responses to their surveys should first offer customers a great incentive, such as a gift card or significant discount, and then ask 5 or fewer clear questions. Companies should also make it very clear that they do read and respond to the feedback they get, and offer an obvious "contact us" button on the website's home page for customers who need to reach them.

Business Speech Improvement (www.businessspeechimprovement.cm) provides intensive training in communication skills. For a list of our curent coaching and e-book training options, visit us today!

Need to make a business speech?

As a speech coach, I often critique presentations. Three of the common mistakes I see are
a lack of passion for the subject, poor preparation in putting the speech together
(due to lack of knowledge in the subject or in writing a presentation) and too little practice. These are the 3 P's: passion, preparation and practice.

Show enthusiasm in your voice! If you think the topic is boring, your audience will, too.
Know your subject, and explain to the audience in the first minute what they will get out of listening to you. Memorize only the keywords of the speech, not every single word, and practice the presentation numerous times. You only get one chance to make a great first impression!

Many more practical tips - from coping with stage fright to how to start and conclude a speech powerfully - are in the e-book "Public Speaking: You Can Do It!", found at http://businessspeechimprovement.com/enabler/scripts/category.pl?EBooks. Contact Business Speech Improvement for speech coaching for presentations, which are available in many cases.

Branding and Customer Service: A Tight Connection

Medical facilities spend a lot of money and effort on branding campaigns. Billboards, articles and the like all proclaim the superiority of their services. However, when staff contact prospective patients before their arrival, they apparently do not all have access to the patient's information, leading them to give varying answers to simple questions. The result is a confused impression in a patient's mind regarding staff's competency.

Branding needs to be carried over into customer service, so that everyone has information on a customer's record and documents a call for future use. Branding is not just a clever slogan; it should include leaving a solid impression of competency in a client's mind.

Your Front Line's Verbal Image

What is your "front line", the first people to talk to a prospective client or vendor, saying, and HOW are they saying it?

Research shows that 93% of the first impression is non-verbal, but based on factors such as tone of voice, rate of speaking, dress, facial expressions, etc. Only 7% of the first impression is based on words alone.

Today I spoke to a member of the "front line" of a multi-million dollar company, about working for them as a vendor. She answered the phone at 10 AM sounding bored and uncaring. A few minutes later, she said of the staff member to whom she referred me, "I think he does stuff like that." Her information about the staff member's responsibilities was very inaccurate, but her language was worse - it was appropriate for a first grader, not for someone who should have had some college background!

If you work in marketing or public relations, are your efforts being undercut by poor communication skills of your "front liners"?