Bridging The Distance

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To survey or not to survey?

That was the question Don James, CEO of three-year-old Bear Data Systems, San Francisco, was asking himself at the beginning of this year.

His company had grown from a two-person operation in the fall of 2004 to a $38 million solution provider by the end of 2006, and is on track to hit more than $65 million this year. But as business grew, even though he sends out both e-mail and paper thank-you notes to customers each month, James felt the distance between him and his customers growing.

"I think we had enough critical mass and were doing enough volume that I didn't feel like I was touching every order," he says. "I thought we had some nice success, and I wanted to ensure that we continue to do it. If we're fortunate enough to keep the client base we have, we'll be successful. One of the ways I saw to do that was sending customer satisfaction surveys to the client."

James began sending surveys to customers asking them to rate the solution provider's performance. Customers are asked to rate the company on a scale of 1 to 5, and for every comment card that comes back with a 3 or lower, James makes a call to the customer.

"People appreciate that everything can't go perfectly all the time if you acknowledge it and try and make it better, they'll come back and do business with you," he says.

The numbers back up James' experience. According to CMP Channel Group's quarterly business spending survey, 66.5 percent of small companies and 60.8 percent of midsize companies say responsiveness influences whether they think they've had a good experience with a solution provider, ahead of technical savvy, timeliness, understanding of business goals and whether they met expected goals.

Happy customers are more likely to refer new customers as well. Of small-business customers that have had good experiences, 54.1 percent responded that they were extremely likely to act as references and 30.3 percent responded that they were fairly likely to do so. Midsize businesses had similar responses with 50.5 saying they were extremely likely and 34 percent said they were fairly likely to act as references for solution providers they liked.

Surveys are a typical method deployed by VARs looking to see what customers think of them, but solution providers have had mixed results when sending them out.

For James, customers were more likely to fill out simple comment cards than to respond to e-mailed survey requests.

"We've tried a little bit with e-mail, but I almost think people get spammed to death these days," he says. "I think we're still trying a little bit of both, but we're having more responses when we send a letter with some boxes they can check off on a card with a self-addressed envelope back to us. ... Obviously it takes us more time and it's more expensive and less efficient, but ultimately I think people get too many e-mails."

Next: The Personal Touch

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