Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday are now in the rearview mirror. Hopefully, this is a time of celebration for you. Before you move beyond Small Business Saturday though, it’s important to take time to evaluate how it went both from the perspective of your customers and the effectiveness of your products.
In recent posts, we talked about the importance of Small Business Saturday and how to prepare to make it as successful as possible. We also highlighted four tips on how to shift your marketing strategy to align with your customers’ new shopping habits, which included:
- Ramp up your online presence
- Follow up with your customers & welcome feedback
- Offer exceptional customer service
- Provide a straightforward holiday return policy
Right now is the best time to take stock of how the weekend went, while everything is fresh in your mind.
Evaluate Your Customers’ Experience
With the pandemic as active as ever, it’s expected that your customers’ shopping habits have been and will continue to be different this year. Getting their feedback from their recent purchase(s) will help you make improvements both to your in-person and online shopping experience.
One of the first steps to take to properly evaluate your customers’ experience is to compare turn out to years past. Was it smaller than you had anticipated or were you pleasantly surprised given the current circumstances? Did you have many customers come to your store or did the majority show their support by shopping online?
One of the benefits of having your customers shop online is that, with access to their email addresses, you can send a short survey to ask them about their experience. Don’t forget to express your gratitude for their support. Here are a few questions you can include to get the most helpful feedback possible:
- Have they purchased from your brand before?
- How did they find your business?
- Did your product meet their needs?
- How satisfied they were on a 1 to 10 measuring scale?
- A comment box for additional feedback
This will give you a good indicator of how your customers felt about their recent shopping experience. With valuable feedback from recent customers, you’ll be able to improve the user experience.
If you don’t have the time to set up a formal survey, consider sending a short email thanking your customers for their support and asking for any feedback.
Evaluate Your Products
This year, many consumers adjusted their shopping habits to accommodate a stay-at-home lifestyle. As a business owner, your brand and products may have been adjusted as well to emphasize safety from COVID-19.
As you evaluate your success on Small Business Saturday, there are a few questions to ask related to your products.
- Did you sell similar products that you have in years past?
- Did you launch a new product line?
- Did your customers gravitate towards particular items?
- Did you have any special promotions on particular products?
Take time to evaluate what products were most popular and how you can use that to your advantage in the months ahead. As you gear up for the remainder of the holiday rush this season, focus on user experience, safety, and the above evaluations.
Now that you’ve had a chance to evaluate your experience with Small Business Saturday, congratulate yourself on things that went well. It is a great achievement to be still be doing what you do in a year like no other.