Planet Antares Incorporated | Planet Antares Vending | Planet Antares

A blog for people to know about how to manage and find information on vending business.

Friday, February 8, 2008

The Edge Provided By Vending Customer Opinion Research

As a vending operator, you would like to know what makes your customer happy and satisfies their demands. This will enable you to determine the best way to cater to their needs and know specifically about the strategies that work or don’t work. Make sure that your services are such that the customer is able to recommend you over your competitors.

Just gathering information is not enough. You need to have good quality information to make effective decisions. Collect information about your customers, such as their likelihood to stay with you in future or the opinion about a new product or service introduced by you. While some information is obvious and easily available, some of it lies hidden in the customer opinion. To discover such information, it becomes essential to conduct an opinion research.

Research can help you identify various opportunities for gaining competitive advantage and steer clear of potential pitfalls. Through research, you can engage customers for testing the significance and impact of decisions before you make or implement them. That’s a good way to avoid spending a lot of money to introduce a new product or service or develop a strategy. Your Planet Antares vending business will certainly have a competitive edge if you see the reaction of your key customers first.

Vending operators will need to customize and personalize their vending equipment and products according to customer requirements and preferences. A well-planned and executed opinion research can go a long way in helping you understand customer requirements and frame effective strategies.

Research is a critical tool that allows you to listen to the customers. This is the most important factor of any successful vending business. How well you understand and respond to customer needs will determine your profitability in the marketplace. The subjects in your opinion research can include:

1. Potential customers
2. Current customers
3. Employees
4. General public
5. Other businesses

A good survey will follow certain principles and have the following characteristics:

• Questions should ask about one subject at a time.
• Such words should be used that can make the question clear to all respondents in the same manner.
• Focus the questions on first hand perceptions or experiences of the customer.