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Oh, the dreaded survey. We all hate them. We aren’t going to complete a survey unless there is something in it for us, right?

Most of us will seek out a survey if we are at one extreme or the other: REALLY mad or REALLY happy. We don’t have much motivation to complete a survey if we’re in the “in between”. But for business owners, the “in between” is the feedback we desperately need.

The feedback about good or mediocre service is where we can shine. It’s hard to move the needle when there are huge things to fix. But feedback on a “good” or “satisfactory” survey score is golden. It’s generally about the little things.

So how do you get your clients to buy in? It’s not as hard as you might think. You just have to make the prospective client see how they will benefit from the survey. And you can’t stop with how they will benefit, you have to sell them on the fact that they will love and appreciate the survey.

In our home service business, a client would call our office for pricing and general info. Or, we would return an online quote request.

The sales process always included: 1) Asking for and addressing their pain points. 2) A price quote with multiple budget options. 3) Countering any objections 4) A visualization of how great it would feel if they signed up for our service, and lastly 4) How we are different than our competitors. Our differentiator was the fact that we surveyed after visit.

Now, most of you will see this as a negative. And, frankly, so did most of our perspective clients UNTIL we painted the picture of why they would come to appreciate the survey. In fact, this was our closer. At the very end of the sales spiel, our script was the following: “And one of the ways we are different is that we are going to send you a survey after every service” I’m surprised people didn’t hang up on us right after that statement. Many times we’d hear an audible sigh. We could “hear” them thinking “Oh man, I was all ready to sign up and then you said this!”

So, how did we close after that bold statement? (Because it was true; we were going to survey after every visit and this was part of our process to set expectations early)

We’d actually acknowledge the disdain we heard over the phone and joke about their response. Here’s what we told those perspective clients:

“Okay, I can hear your disappointment about the survey after every visit. And if it were like a regular survey, I wouldn’t blame you for dreading the survey. But here’s why you will come to appreciate our survey:

1. First off, it is a simple one question survey. It will take you 10 seconds to rate your last service. If you decide to give us comments, which our techs love to see, by the way, it might take you 45 seconds.
2. Secondly, it is a super easy way to communicate to us. If you’ve ever had trouble reaching a service provider, this will not be a problem with us. Yes, we definitely answer the phone or an email. But this survey comes to you, you just rate and reply with your comments.
3. Have you ever had a service provider that starts out great and then the service steadily goes downhill? That won’t be us because we are proactively watching the level of service you feel you are receiving. We take this feedback seriously, and if you don’t tell us why your satisfaction level has dropped, we are going to follow up to find out what is happening.
4. Last, but probably the biggest impact from the survey, is that we are a performance driven company. That means that we watch how satisfied our customers are overall, but also down to the tech level. Now, we don’t do this to be a punitive company. We do this to make sure we have done everything possible to provide the best training, re-training if necessary, and coach people up. Our techs actually earn paid days off and bonuses based on their response rate. So, just by returning that one question survey, you are rewarding the staff members who cleaned your home.

Hopefully after that spiel, you can see exactly why you will end up loving our survey. In fact, if we forget to send the survey for any reason, we have people call us asking why they didn’t receive the survey!

So, if I’ve answered all of your questions and you are ready to get on the schedule, our next opening is ...”

It’s true. a simple one question survey can absolutely change your culture (that’s a whole other topic, though) AND close sales calls. Check out Quality Driven Software (QDS). QDS will give you all the data you need to feel confident in your quality, so that you can close those sales calls. You’ll know you are the best in town!”