A Simple Way to Get Feedback From Your Clients

Monkeyin’ Around with Survey Monkey

So you’ve had a few gigs . . . you even, maybe, had a few re-bookings. Good for you. That’s always a great feeling. But you can’t help but wonder; wonder, why? Why did they hire you? Why did they re-hire you? Why didn’t they re-hire you? Why don’t you ask them? It’s easier than you think. Enter Survey Monkey, a simple way to do surveys and get feedback from your clients. I actually created a survey in about 10 minutes. I’ve included it at the end of this article. Please take it when you have a moment. I really would like to know what you think. Either way, the point is that you, too, can make a simple survey in just a few minutes. Once you’ve created it, simply email it to your client after the show. You only need to make the survey once. You can continue using the same one over and over.

Gettin’ ’em to Respond

So how do you get your client to fill out the survey? Simple, offer them money. Just make sure you capture their name and any other pertinent info in the survey. Then offer them a discount of $50 (or whatever fits your price range and gig costs) off on a repeat booking. Survey Monkey stores all the data, stats, names, etc., so you’ll know who took the survey and who didn’t. You may also want to consider entering them into a drawing for a free gig if they fill it out. Do you have any products (particularly eProducts) that you can give away for free?

You may also suggest to the planner who hired you to forward the survey to all who attended the show. Make sure there’s a spot in your survey for “referred by” and give the planner instructions for those who receive the survey to fill out the planner’s name or company so that you can connect all the surveys back to the planner. Maybe X number of people filling out equals a free (or severely discounted) show.

What Questions Should You Ask?

That’s a great question, a question about questions. The free version of Survey Monkey allows for 10 questions. You don’t need that many. You can ask multiple choice questions, ranging questions (on a scale from 1 to 10, how good was the show), or you can ask open ended questions (i.e., essay answers). Break down your show into specific parts and ask, which was your favorite part. Or create a question asking which effect was their favorite, least favorite, etc.

What do you want to know? I want to know how good/bad my show was, and how likely they’ll be to re-book and/or refer me to someone else, so ask them. Once you look at setting up your surveys, you’ll see how simple it is to come up with the correct questions and what format to ask them.

Finally, make sure you leave at least one comment box at the end allowing them to just write anything that they feel. You’ll be surprised how valuable this can be. You’ll find that it’ll either be left blank or that it’ll be filled with excellent feedback. Take it all in.

All of the answers are stored in Survey Monkey and can be viewed as very useful graphs. As you’ll see in my survey below, one of the questions I’ve asked is what your favorite column in Stone Cold Magic Magazine is. I’m able to see a graph of which column is “winning” and which column is “losing.”

Practicing What I’m Preaching

Please take a moment to fill out the survey I’ve created. Please fill it out sincerely and make sure you enter your correct email address. It’s only 6 questions, and all are multiple choice. All who submit the survey (with their legitimate email address) will be entered into a drawing for a Free Stone Cold Magic Product of your choosing. Here’s the Survey: Stone Cold Magic Magazine Survey Monkey Survey.

Until Next Month . . .