Polling Your Clients For Better Results

I would like to write about a point that many times we as website administrators may fail to remember. Being able to accept feedback and criticism is essential in the longevity of your small business. This point is especially true when it comes to the economic cycle being in a downtrend right now.

What I mean by the economic comment is that the fact that you are trying to stay competitive in the online business world in large part depends on your ability to keep your clients happy. When they give you feedback, it's very important to listen to what they all have to say about the function and form of your website.

You can take what they say with a grain of salt of course. What this will do is give your members the feeling of ownership in your online company and in turn they will be more willing to spread the word to others about your website that they enjoy so much.

You don't have to do every single thing that your customers may comment about, but it gives them a sense that they have a say and a little bit of power when purchasing products often times. A great way is to include a comment area at the end of their purchase order simply asking a few questions.

You may find that many folks who are always in such a big hurry are more inclined to leave a comment about their experience if you pose it all in just the right way. Using 5 interesting questions with multiple choices to pick from helps out a lot. You may often see these at other websites asking you about who you think is going to win a nascar race or the presidency or anything.

Allowing the client to easily choose from a multiple choice layout without dragging it on too long is the key. Everybody is in such a big hurry to get in and get out, it's wise to remember this point. What you can do is from week to week cycle in and out many different questions, but you just don't want there to be too much of a drawn out situation.

Another cool idea is using your chat room if you have one. First of all, if you don't have a live real time chat room where others can talk to each other and once in a while you can pop in, I suggest that you start to look into it.

It's one thing to communicate with your clients through email or your website with blog postings once in a while. It's a completely different thing to have real time live chats back and forth with people that you know from buying your products. What this does is allow you to get a better grasp of what your clients are like and what they might be willing to pay for in the future.

The way in which you want to go about structuring something like this is completely up to you. You can make it available to everyone all the time and just see what it evolves in to, or you can set it up where the person has to opt in by signing up and clicking on a confirmation link. Many times this is a great way to go if you are trying to filter out the spammy and annoying types of computer generated users that hop from one place to another.

So based on what your feelings and missions are with whatever sort of company that you run, don't be afraid to take that next step and fall into the networking world. You will find that you could often visit the chat room via logging in using your webcam to talk to everyone. This just opens many more possibilities to the outside world who can then interact with you in a really cool and virtual way.