🔥 Pro tip: when you run customer surveys, encourage people to be 100% honest. As in, really spell out that they should be honest, and that you will love their feedback. This bonus question is great because it gives your customers the chance to discuss any thoughts they have about your company or product that they haven’t yet expressed. Ask the question in a way that encourages them to speak from the heart—for example: ‘Is there anything else you would like to add? Go for it! We love honest and direct feedback’—and just sit back and listen.
How to run a customer survey: 3 steps
Now that you’ve seen the questions you’ll need, it’s time to use them in a customer survey. Setting up a few phone calls and going through each question in person is one of the best ways to go about it and develop real, in-person empathy for your customers. And yes: it might feel weird to contact people or even have a Skype/Hangout call with a complete stranger—but some loyal customers will even feel flattered that you want to hear from them. The only con to this approach is that it won’t necessarily give you fast insights. You may need to send quite a few invites and wait until you find someone whose calendar aligns with yours, plus each call will take you about 30 minutes. While you do that, use Hotjar Surveys and prepare a written survey to email your customers or share as soon as they have completed a purchase—this will help you some extra data, faster. There are only three steps to follow: Step 1: set up a customer survey Step 2: share the survey with your customers Step 3: analyze the data
Step 1: set up a customer survey
From the Hotjar dashboard, start a new survey and give it a descriptive title (it will appear at the top of the page your customers see):
Add the questions one by one; you are obviously free to tweak the 5+1 questions we showed above and adapt them to your needs. For example, a question like “who are you and what do you do?” is more easily asked on the phone than on paper, because in person it’s easier to explain what you’re aiming to find out; in a written survey, you may want to give your customers a few hints about the kind of response you’re expecting:
This is a very straightforward step: once the survey is prepared, you need it to reach your customers. You can:
Send it to your customers via email, making sure you explain concisely what you’re trying to achieve and why their help is important
Invite your customers to fill it in as soon as they have completed a purchase and are still on your website. To alert them, trigger a pop-up message to appear on the thank you page:
Because you’ve asked open-ended questions (as in: questions that your customers need to elaborate on as opposed to picking their answer from a given set), you will need a system to categorize them and start identifying trends. It’s a manual process that requires a spreadsheet and this step-by-step guide to analyzing open-ended questions.
At the end of the process, you should have enough insight to identify a way forward and start making impactful changes.
May 7, 2021
Pinning down customers’ wants and needs is hard. While you speak as if they’re one person, in reality, it’s 100s, even 1,000s, of unique people. How are you supposed to cater to each and every need? How can you make sure that your products sell? Start by thinking about why customers buy products in the first place.
8 Reasons Why Customers Buy Products
So what do we mean by why customers buy products? Think about it, there has to be a reason, right? Why would someone spend their money for no good reason?
Well, there is a handful of motivating factors that lead people to make purchases. While it’s hard to pin down specifics, there are general motivations to follow.
If you want to learn more about why people buy products, check out our article The Ins and Outs of Buyer Motivation You Need to Know.
1. Because They Want It/Pride
This is probably the simplest reason. People will buy a product because they want it. Depending on what they buy, they may even want to show it off. Brand recognition will come in handy in this case.
2. Protection/Fear
This may seem like two very different things, but in reality, they have the same base motivation. The motivation is to protect themselves from something bad happening.
Fear of danger can be a powerful motivator to purchase certain products. People will buy locks to protect themselves from outside danger. This is an immediate solution to the fear of something happening.
People will buy something protective for the future cause of loss, like house insurance. They bought the insurance in case something happens that causes them to lose their house. Or in a smaller example, a phone case to protect the phone from being broken so easily.
If your product makes them feel safer in any form, then they may push the Buy Button.
3. Ease of Daily Life
Everyone wants life to be as easy as possible, and who can blame them? Products like washing machines are popular because they make the everyday act of laundry smoother. If your product can help a customer in any way, make sure to highlight that when you’re marketing it.
4. Impulse
Let’s talk about impulse buying. We’re all guilty of it at one point or another. When we impulse buy, it’s usually a product that’ll make us happier. Impulse buys are done without much thought and instead, customers are caught up in the moment.
Products that are fun, brightly colored, or makes a customer laugh are great for impulse purchases. If this sounds like one of your products, make sure to highlight these aspects.
Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest are great for finding impulse buyers.
5. Fear of Missing Out
This can be tied in with impulse buying but has more of a focus on popular trends. When there is a wildly popular trend, people tend to buy from that trend because they don’t want to be left out. They’ll buy to prove that they’re part of the group and show off their purchase.
There’s nothing wrong with jumping on the trend train and marketing your products as such.
6. Health/Aspiration
Personal wellbeing is probably the most important thing to people. If a product guarantees that it will help people live longer and healthier, people will buy it. This can also include any form of self-improvement and ways for people to better themselves.
7. Did Other Customers Like It?
If a buyer is unsure whether or not they should buy something, they’ll look at reviews. If the reviews are overwhelmingly positive, it might be the push they need to make the purchase.
This is why you have to encourage your customers to leave reviews. Offer them a discount as a way to entice them to do so.
8. Limited Editions
People love buying things that are limited edition or part of a flash sale. It can make them feel like they got something special that not a lot of people have.
If a product seems popular, but not selling, try having a flash sale. Use a countdown clock to show your customers they only have so much time to buy this product.
What Need/Want Does Your Product Satisfy?
After learning about the different reasons people buy things, ask yourself “What need/want does my product satisfy?” You may only have one answer, or maybe all of them. Use this knowledge to market yourself to your audience and get their attention.