Is your marketing responsive enough?

Is your marketing responsive enough? Is your company agile enough to respond when your customers are telling you what they want and how they think you could be better? Many small businesses are simply not arming themselves to pivot when customer feedback comes storming in. A huge consumer voice survey was performed by the Disqo company and their results should provide a road map for responsive marketing. The following data was taken directly from their survey findings:

• Surveys were taken on both desktop and mobile devices. In total, 79,106 survey responses are included in this report.
• People want to be heard. A vast majority (90.3%) of people agree that brands should listen to their opinion, a figure which has been relatively consistent thus far in 2020 (+0.7% since January).
• Most people feel that brands are listening. A notable majority (82.3%) of people agree that brands listen to customer feedback, though only 10.4% of people completely agree with this assessment.
• People prefer to share their opinion via surveys. A significant majority (84.6%) of people reported that they share their opinions with brands by taking surveys. While a preference for surveys was to be expected given that the study itself was a survey, no other feedback mechanism listed (posting on social media, contacting customer support, posting a review online, or changing purchase behavior) crested the 50% threshold.

• People are more likely to change their shopping habits than to contact a brand directly. Brands who are reliant on organic customer feedback — through customer service, reviews, or social media monitoring — may be too slow to affect positive change. More people reported that they express their opinions of brands by changing their purchase behavior (44.7%) than those who post on social media (22.2%), contact customer support (29.5%), or post reviews online (35.7%).
• People want to be appreciated and heard. When asked why they take surveys, a majority expressed that being rewarded for sharing their opinion (71.5%) and simply sharing their opinion (57.8%) were motivators.
• People believe their voice has an impact. In addition to believing that brands listen to them, most people agreed that they believe their participation in surveys makes an impact on brands (80.9%) and products (80.5%), a sentiment that has been relatively stable thus far in 2020.

-Written by Kevin Sawyer