Tuesday, 28 April 2015

The Importance of the Real Estate Survey

Why It’s Crucial

When composing a real estate survey, the survey is only as good as the person doing the administration. Be sure the individual in charge of issuing the proctor is fully competent and has experience. This person should have experience and a full list of criteria that they need to make the right decisions.

There’s nothing worse than having great property that’s mindlessly squandered because a survey person wasn’t sure of their job.

The real estate game is all about taking capital, investing it, and flipping it into something greater. It’s a common sense principle, but it’s often overlooked by a lot of people in the industry.

The survey is vital because it helps with risk reduction when you know that a property is likely to be a lucrative investment or not.


 What To Look For

When conducting a real estate survey, all sorts of things are important to keep in mind.

The first is elevation. Most people don’t think about it, but the grand you stand upon isn’t always perfectly in line with the ocean. Oftentimes, you’re either above or below sea level. The drastic change in sea level can mean the difference between millions. If a house is above sea level, flooding won’t be an issue. This means that flood insurance is no longer necessary, and also, construction-wise, you can engineer below ground amenities like pools or basements.

If a house is below sea level, be careful. Any subterranean constructions could easily result in a leak or flood.

These might seem like unnecessary precautions, but if you’re a new homeowner, every little thing counts.

Second Opinions

Just like with any crucial decision, you don’t just take the first opinion and run with it. The important thing to consider is getting multiple opinions whenever you do a survey on a given property.

One surveyor may specialize with a certain type of property, others, may specialize with other types. Since this individual is responsible for the effectiveness in which you can flip your property, it’s a big deal if you can get the right surveyor to give you the best price for your investment.


There will be some ups and downs with your initial investments, but over time, the rewards will outweigh the losses and frightening risks. After a few surveys, you’ll see that the process isn’t as painful as it appears on paper. 

Friday, 24 April 2015

Dine-In Restaurants Surveys for Better Service

Why Are Dine-In Surveys So Vital?

Dine-in surveys are important for many reasons. The vital reason they’re really useful relates to the fact that they keep restaurants honest. If a diner or other establishment were simply serving or providing inferior service without anyone checking them for it, the terrible behavior would continue.

We want to break patterns quickly before they fester; that’s why it’s important to ensure these surveys are immediately broken through.

Also if you yourself own a restaurant, a good survey procedure is a good way to ensure your customers trust you’re doing whatever you can to improve upon yourself as a business.

They are vital not only so customers trust your business more and will provide more business in the future.

The number one key in the food business is getting continued customers.



Methods Of Issuing Surveys

There’s several ways you can issue surveys. The surveys can be provided digitally, in-person, or they can be issued orally.

Digital surveys can be as easy as using small tablet devices on the top of tables. These systems are commonly used by businesses like Applebees and Chilis. These retailers are pushing the boundaries for surveys as this is the first time such technology has been used for survey purposes.

In-person surveys are surveys that are physically submitted on a questionnaire card. The card is often provided on the receipt of finished meals, and the patrons have the option of submitting them after they are done eating.

Oftentimes, the patrons are offered a gift card or some form of coupon in order to incentivize them to submit a survey. If they submit the survey in a timely manner, they might be entitled to enhanced benefits.

The other type of survey is rarely used, but is still a common practice in smaller, less corporatized businesses. This survey is also known as the oral survey. The server, manager or hostess would often ask the guests if they enjoyed their experience. They be asked if they enjoyed their dining experience, and may be asked if they would ever eat at the establishment again.

This type of survey is not as common, but is still used in some instances in order to get a direct response from the customer. However, the customer is usually more inclined to tell the restaurant whatever they want to hear—it’s a bit awkward telling someone to their face that their service was subpar.


Overall, a good survey is vital to guaranteeing that a restaurant is effectively doing business the right way. 

Friday, 17 April 2015

Benefits of Survey Samples

Online surveys are tools that are used to collect information from a part of or all the units of a certain population. The collected information is the compiled into a more useful form. Due to the varying data collection needs, there are two different types of surveys that may be used to collect information on varying circumstances. The two main types of surveys are:

• Sample Surveys
• Censuses

Throughout this article, the various differences as well as the benefits of survey samples and censuses will be elaborated.

Sample Surveys
While carrying out a sample survey, only a portion of the population under study is approached to contribute the required information, regarding the topic being studied. This data is then weighed and inferences are then made about the entire population. A sample survey may be defined as a set of observations taken from a certain population, the goal being to obtain certain information about the population. So, why would you use this type of surveys?


• It is cost effective: as compared to censuses, sample surveys are more economical in terms of staffing and monetary requirements. 
• It is time effective: since sample surveys require a smaller scale of operation, they require minimal time to collect the data and process it.
• Such surveys allow for more detailed questions to be asked.
• Allows for characteristics to be tested: such characteristics cannot be assessed with the censuses. An example is a study to establish the lifespan of a certain type of light bulbs or the tensile strength of springs.

To do this, some of the products may need to be destroyed. Since all cannot be destroyed to ascertain this, only a few of them are tested.

• It is less burdensome on the respondents: requires a few people to carry out a comprehensive survey and collect the required data.
• The results of survey samples are availed within a short period

Censuses
Censuses, on the hand, are a type of surveys that is meant to collect information from all the units in a population. In other words, this type of surveys requires complete enumeration of the entire population. As you can see this survey type is intensive on time, money and staffing requirements.

Design Considerations on Sample Surveys
When carrying out a sample survey, various design considerations that need to be addressed carefully. Such design considerations include sample design, size, mode of estimation, stratification, and data allocation across the strata as well as selecting the sample across the strata. Generally, survey samples are more economical and give fast and accurate results.

Wednesday, 15 April 2015

Survey Examples Based on Objectives

Are you looking forward to creating an online survey, but do not have the time, survey examples can help you design a compelling and strong survey, based on your objectives. The survey templates on the leading online survey websites have been designed by experts to help you out when you are designing a new survey. Some of these examples are also customizable, allowing you to edit the questions or even add new ones, according to your requirements. The survey template examples will help you come up with actionable and reliable data. However, before using any of the survey template examples, it is important that you have clearly formulated objectives and use the examples as a guidance to create a good quality survey questionnaire. So, how can these examples are used?


General

While using examples to formulate a survey, you need to ensure that you satisfy your general objectives of the survey by:

• Engaging the audience, making them understand what you need, hence retain them
• Improving customer satisfaction in your business, hence gain customer loyalty and profit from the business.
• Getting to know the aspects that make the business unique and exploiting that to market the business.
• Formulating a two way communication system between the business and the customers.

To Better Newsletter Results

Using the samples that have been designed by the professionals will help you improve the newsletter results with your online survey. This is particularly beneficial for the first time survey developers. This may be done using share and click rates and including feedback link within your email newsletter. Bettering the newsletter results is beneficial in that:

• Allows you to gain new interesting topics, know the interests of guest writers and frequency preference of your customers.
• Enables you to identify the preferences of your clients in email communication, hence segment your list
• This will also allow you to include a poll in your email: this will enable you to let the customers rate the newsletter and even vote on the featured topic in the topic to follow

Basically, using survey examples will allow you to get an idea of how a good online survey should look like. Regardless of the type of survey you would like to create, you will find a sample survey template to enable you create a good survey. Therefore, you need not to worry if this is your time to create an online survey; you can always use the sample questions and answer types on the leading survey sites as a point of reference.

Tuesday, 14 April 2015

Convert Customer Complaints into Actionable CRM Using Online Comment Card

An online comment card is simply a brief survey that is meant to allow the consumers to rate their experiences with a certain business. They are a great option if you would like to collect the opinions of your customers, regarding their experience with your products and services. As a business owner, knowing the opinion of your customers is important. As a business manager, or maybe a restaurant owner, you may also use these comment cards as complaint management systems to identify the various aspects of the business that have to be addressed. According to experts, how you listen to the opinion of your customers matters. The feedback from consumers ranges from strategic to tactical. As such, companies need a comprehensive voice of the consumer capture system in place.


Why you need comment cards

Such a system should be capable of capturing, analysing and taking the appropriate action, based on the results. Comment cards are effective solutions, with regards to gathering tactical feedback that is user initiated. When coupled with representative sampling and a careful selection of the targeted audience gives companies a complete voice of the consumer tool kit. Such a tool kit is very essential for various businesses when it comes to addressing the tactical issues at hand, as well as the more complicated branding considerations.

How should the cards look like?

Online comment cards should be properly personalized, such that they have the same feel and look as the company brand. Such a comment card will allow the visitors to your website an opportunity to explain their dislikes of your goods and services, praise your goods and services and even offer suggestions on various aspects of your business, in their own words. Prior to filling the comment card, the visitors will be required to indicate the nature of comment they are about to leave on the website. This allows the company to categorize the comments by type and isolate the various issues addressed by the consumers.

After receiving the comments from the customers using an online comment card, you are supposed to analyze them keenly using an interactive dashboard. Some of the dashboards available today feature a one-click concept, making them more suited for this type of open-ended feedback. The results obtained using the comment cards may be displayed either on a score card or just trended over time using a section of 6teh site or by page. Comment cards are an outstanding mode of data collection.

Sunday, 12 April 2015

What Can a Free Online Survey & Questionnaire Tool do for you?

Online surveys are a good and affordable way of understanding how successful your brand is, directly from the consumers. Currently, there are numerous free online survey & questionnaire tools that may be used to define survey questions in a bid to get valuable responses. Such tools will also allow you to create links and sent them out for the respondents to fill the survey. The majority of these tools also offer sophisticated functionalities, which can be very important when you are planning for something more complicated than an online survey. So, what exactly can these tools do for you?

Gives Surveys a Flexible Feel and Look

With the free online survey tools, you can customize the appearance and feel of the surveys, in line with the requirements of your company or organization. A survey that is prominently branded will command attention in the eyes of the respondents, which will help you have a greater response rate.  The various tools have features allowing you to customize the font, colour and header graphics of the survey questionnaire.


Allows You to Skip Logic

If the survey is a bit complicated, it is advisable to allow the respondents to skip some portions of the survey. Allowing the respondents to skip the sections that do not concern them will ensure that you get quality information. The free online survey tools will allow you to create the skip logic functionality in your online surveys.

Offers a Piping Functionality

The piping functionality, found in some of the free online survey & questionnaire tools, allows you to pull from a certain section of the survey questionnaire and insert them in another part of the same survey. For instance, if you had asked the respondent where they live and responded New York, you can then use the piping feature to redirect them to the question ‘what do you love about New York city?’ Some more advanced versions of the free tools will allow you to combine the skip logic functionality with piping for better quality responses.

They allow for Website Integration

While some of the available online survey and questionnaire tools only allow the user to create surveys on their websites. However, there are other free tools that will allow you to integrate the survey to your company website. This is important when you are conducting a poll.

Owing to their many benefits and useful functionalities, free online survey & questionnaire tools are a preferred way of creating online surveys today.

Friday, 10 April 2015

Making the Most Out of Your Comment Card System

When implementing any customer feedback system, it is important to take full advantage of the system. The same goes for the comment card system. To begin with, you should take your time and plan an effective strategy. You should also be keen on asking questions that will benefit your business. Finally, you also need to design the card in a way that is accessible to guests. To make the most out of your comment card system, you should consider the following tips.

Use a Reputable site

For the online comment cards to be taken seriously by your target audience, they need to be professionally designed. This can only be done using powerful tools provided by the leading online survey companies. Therefore, you should use professional tools to create the comment cards. 


Make it Short and Precise

All the questions and information on the cards should be well designed in a clear and straightforward manner. The questions should be straight to the point and use minimal words possible to convey the accurate information. A good comment card should not take the respondent more than a minute to fill. 

Notify your Respondents of the Cards

In addition to using the best and most convenient method possible to send out the cards, you should also let the guests know that the cards need their attention. Otherwise, only a few people will know that the cards exist in the first place, let alone filling them. This will in turn lead to a low response rate, which will not give you substantial information to make a wise business decision. To notify the respondents, you may send them notification emails or include a link to the card on your website.

Offer Incentives

In most cases, people are motivated by getting something in return for their spend time. To increase the response rate on your cards and make the comment card system more effective, you should consider offering the respondents something in return for filling the comment cards fully. For instance, you can offer them a 10 percent discount the next time they visit your outlet, provided that they filled the card fully.

Acknowledge the Respondent’s Time

If a respondent fills the card fully with useful information and leaves his or her contact information, you should write him or her personal note thanking him or her for the time. This is particularly useful for the clients who leave a bad comment about the company. This will make them know that you have taken their complaint into account and are doing something about it.

Once used properly, the comment card system is a valuable tool, which will help you what customers think of your business.

Wednesday, 8 April 2015

Insist on Survey for Business for Your Business

For business and company owners looking forward to conducting a research on the market, online business surveys is the best option. A quality survey for business will furnish you with all the necessary information, regarding your products and services as well as the market you are targeting. In addition to being effective, surveys are cost effective research tools. Currently, there are various ways of engaging web-based consumers and getting to know their deepest needs, opinions and wants, but online surveys are among the best. Since surveys are meant to collect data, the data will not be of any benefit to the business, unless it is of high quality, specific and targeted. To get such data from the recipients, you will need quality survey questionnaires.



Importance of Quality Online Surveys
For many reasons, it is advisable to only opt for quality online surveys, mentioned below are some of the main reasons.

• Enhances staff satisfaction
• Encourages researches for solutions that are in line with the objectives of the company
• Enhances production of reliable, transparent and consistent products and services
• Minimizes flaws and rework on products and services of the company
• Provides a basis for evaluation in the company
• Improves control of access panels and the management of business operations
• Improves global competitiveness of the brand
• Offers insight on why a certain brand id not effective
• Ensures timely delivery in the business
• Helps in maturing a good relationship with the customers

Ensuring that your Survey is of Good Quality
To ensure that your survey is of the highest quality possible, you should first assess your objectives. As such, you should clearly understand your mission, assets and willingness to explore the current technology used to create online survey for business. You may also to do a bit of research to see what the competitors are doing. After this, you can use the valuable tools and techniques in the leading online survey sites to create an outstanding survey questionnaire based on the requirements and objectives of the company.

Settling on the right online survey site is the initial and, of course, one of the basic and important things in creating a high quality survey for business. Therefore, you should conduct some research to ascertain the best online survey companies with the best and powerful technology to create and send the survey questionnaires as well as tools to collect the data and analyze it.

Why You Should Use Hybrid Techniques in Your Online Survey for Fast Food Point

Even after going through the balance sheet every month, you still have not have not found the best way to measure the success of your various products and services, or even how to better them. In most cases, the success of various brands may be measured in terms of customer satisfaction. Conducting an online survey for fast food will help you understand how satisfied your customers are. As such, you will be in a position to tell how the fast food point is faring and what people think about it.  Customer loyalty, coupled with satisfaction will determine the growth of your business in the long run.

 In simple terms, the growth of your fast food outlet will be, to a great extend, determined by the level of satisfaction of your customers and their loyalty. With online surveys, you can determine how satisfied the customers are and even know why some are dissatisfied with the outlet. Currently, different techniques are being used in online surveys, but the hybrid research techniques better suited for fast food online surveys.


Why do you Need Hybrid Research?


Over the years, the hybrid research techniques have proven to be very effective in online surveys, with regards to collecting both qualitative and quantitative data about the business. In hybrid surveys, questions aimed at collecting both qualitative and quantitative information are used within the same questionnaire, rather than having to formulate two different survey questionnaires. This can be very beneficial for your business in that it saves time and resources and collects quality information from the customers.

Giving Voice to Figures


If you are just carrying out a quantitative research in your online survey for fast food outlet, chances are that you are missing some information. The figures alone will not give you the complete picture of what you are trying to find out. Coupling qualitative and quantitative aspects in the survey will give the opinions of the consumers an identifiable language. Additionally, this will also give you a story behind the figures.

Owing to the effectiveness and increased popularity of the hybrid online survey for fast food points, various techniques and tools have been invented to make the surveys more accessible and approachable than ever before. As such, there are numerous hybrid options, which may be used to create quality survey questionnaires today. Additionally, you may also use the many resources and tools in the leading online survey sites to come up with a captivating online survey for your fast food point.

Tuesday, 7 April 2015

How to Improve Response Rate on Professional Only Surveys

Currently, there are numerous survey tools that may be used to formulate online surveys. It can be very frustrating for the survey developer to create a survey that gets minimal attention from the target audience. After spending a considerable amount of time and resources to craft a quality and targeted online survey, your desire is that it gets to the target audience and that the majority of the respondents answer the survey questions. Additionally, getting data from many people will help the company arrive at the right conclusions and make informed business decisions. So, how do you get as many respondents as possible to respond to your professional only survey?


Targeting the audience

There are various ways of sending your survey. Generally, very few people will be interested in responding to survey questions that do not concern them in any way. As such, you must ensure that the surveys are delivered to the right audience, regardless of the method you use to send them. Various methods, such as web communities and newsgroups, may be used to send out surveys, but online survey sites and emails are the best methods to target your surveys.

Keep the invitations short and precise

Many email users will only take a glance at an email to know the content. As such, you should strive to grab the attention of your target audience in a few words and make them want to fill the survey. Some of the things you may need to include in the invitation email are:

1.  Who you are and why you would like the respondent to fill the survey
2. The benefit of the survey to the respondent and to your company
3. The length of the survey, and probably how long it would take to fill the survey
4. You may also include a privacy statement, if it is applicable to your company.

Offer incentives

Offering gifts or a chance to win a certain price after filling the survey will encourage more respondents to fill your survey. Many people today would like to get something for spending their time on something. As such, you can be sure to increase the response rate on your professional only survey if you offer incentives.


Owing to the essence of professional only surveys in improving the working environment and service delivery in the company, many companies are looking for ways to improve response rates on such surveys. To improve the response rate on your surveys, you should consider using these tips.

Sunday, 5 April 2015

All online survey campaigns have one thing in common; they require a multi-tiered support system to be effective. Formulating and sending the online questionnaire to the target respondents is a process that requires both time and resources. This is particularly the case during the development process of the survey questionnaire.

 To pool the required resources together, you will require help from the management team in the business. Additionally, you will need to have someone to take ownership of the process and ensure its successful execution. Finally, you will need to recruit the support of the respondents for the survey campaign to be successful. Regardless of the type of online survey you are creating, it is advisable to have three levels of support, including survey participants, project owner and executive.


1.The Executive

Recruiting the executive support starts right from the planning stage of the survey questionnaire. You need to set the objectives of the project, so that the executive understand what they are up to. For instance, you may be creating an employee survey; in this case, the objective may be how to improve employee retention. After the executive support has signed off the survey, you will need to ensure that they are in line with the plan.

2.Project Owner

In your survey, you will need a project owner. This is a person who takes full responsibility of the project to ensure its successful completions. Having a champion for the campaign will greatly increase its chances of success. Your project owner should have the required expertise in the project as well as substantial time to devote towards the project, all the way from the creation of the online questionnaires to the insight-based action stage. This is the person who will be accountable for the success or failure of the survey campaign.

3.Respondents

The best way to incorporate more respondents in the survey campaign is creating awareness of the campaign in the first place. Additionally, you should also ensure that the questionnaire is designed in a manner that is friendly to the respondents. Awareness of the survey may be conducted by sending out email notifications and subsequent reminders to the target audience.

In addition to designing the online questionnaire well, you will also need to incorporate the three support levels for the survey campaign to be successful. You can also take advantage of the survey tools on the reputable survey sites to come up with an engaging questionnaire.

Saturday, 4 April 2015

The Role of Free Online Survey Software in Improving Business Success

The voice of the consumers is very important in any given organization. To build customer loyalty, businesses need to develop a reliable interaction with its customers. Through online surveys, companies get client feedback, which helps them better their products and increase customer satisfaction. Currently, survey software is among the best tools in boosting sales and enhancing the success of companies. Rather than buying survey software, you should consider using the free Online Survey Software in your business. Some of the magnificent features of free survey software include:

• Offers an array of themes for you to choose from
• Offers an innovative interface to use in online surveys 
• Online password protection 
• Easy customization for your surveys 
• Gives email notifications, regarding your surveys 
• Allows you to view your reports anytime and anywhere 
• Gives you full control over your responses to surveys

To access such features and help your business forge forward, you should consider using free survey software. Why should companies use such software in their operations?


Improves Relations with Customers

To communicate effectively with your customers, it is highly advisable that you create a two way communication system. Online survey software is a powerful tool, which may be used to measure the responses by customers to your online surveys. When the clients have something to comment about the company, they will require a channel that is straight forward and not intimidating. Installing free Online Survey Software in a computer ensures that the company has a two-way system of communication, hence can trace problems and discover solutions to various problems in the company.

They are fast

With the current technological advancement, the fastest way to get client feedback is through online surveys. Survey software will help you formulate well targeted online surveys, which are in line with the objectives of the business. Sending valuable surveys to the customers will guide them in providing usable and accurate data. This will, in turn, shed light behind the reasons for success or failure of your products. The responses will help the company rectify flaws or problems in their products and services.

Addressing the concerns of your customers will make them more satisfied. This will boost sales in the business and contribute to success in the business. Free Online Survey Software is the best and cheap way for your business to get accurate, up-to-date and valuable information from the customers.

Friday, 3 April 2015

Considerations While Creating Online Survey for Restaurants

As a restaurant owner or manager, you should be worried about what your customers think of your restaurant, the service they got or even the quality of food they had in your restaurant. These are some of the insights you can get from the customers to help propel your business to success.  Among the best ways to obtain such insight from the customers is by creating an online survey for restaurants. Using quality and powerful online survey tools, you can come up with a good survey targeting your customers. Some of the commonly used restaurant surveys, and which can give you valuable insight about your business include:

1.  Recent dining experience of the customers
2.  Dining preferences and habits

So, how do you go about creating a captivating online restaurant survey? Mentioned are some of the things you should observe while creating such a survey.


Choose the Appropriate Survey Method

The method you choose to use should be able to gather real information from the customers in real time. This is because real information in real time is the only way for you to ascertain the weaknesses and strengths of the business. Choosing the appropriate methods will also help you get responses that are driven by customer needs and desires.

Use Open- ended Questions More

One of the important sections of an online survey for restaurants is the narrative answers from the clients. As such, you should consider using more open-ended questions, as opposed to the closed questions. Allowing the customers the freedom to express themselves will ensure that you get responses that are both specific and actionable. Additionally, you may also use the rating scale type of questions in some parts of the survey. For instance, you may use a scale type question for the clients to rate the quality of services they got in the restaurant.

If you decide to use the scale type of scale, you may as well follow up, in the subsequent questions, to know why the customer gave such a rating. The best type of question to use in the follow up is again the open-ended type of questions.

Surveying your customers in various ways and regularly is vital in any business, including the restaurants. Online survey for restaurants is a good way of measuring the level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction among your customers. They are also an opportunity to communicate effectively with your customers and build a personal relationship with them, both of which are essential for the success of your business.