Nate Riggs: Social Business Strategies; communication, social web strategies, & passion in Columbus, Ohio.

I’ve subscribed to SurveyGizmo for about three weeks now.

It’s an online survey and polling tool that has a bit more meat on its bones than PollDaddy.  And in my mind, it also has a much nicer user interface than SurveyMonkey.  I’ve used all three and landed here from my own projects.

What’s interesting – from a marketing angle – is that I never saw an ad, read an article or blog post, or even received a tweet from the company.  Nope. Nothing.  I found SurveyGizmo while taking a recent survey that Dan Harris included me on.  It just so happened that, at the time of Dan’s Q&A, I was about to start looking at survey tool options.  Serendipity, yes?

I was so impressed with how clean Dan’s survey was designed, I decided to try SurveyGizmo on for size.

I currently have three client surveys out and I’ve been impressed with how easy they have been to set up.  There’s also a good amount of pre-build logic for questions.  I’m planning some more surveys and polls for research for a few eBooks in process over the next few weeks.

Then on Friday afternoon, SurveyGizmo did something VERY important, in terms of growing a business.  With a heartfelt, creative, and highly humanized piece of direct mail, the folks at SurveyGizmo converted me from a happy customer into a raving fan.

Guess what else happened?  I’m now telling you the story.  See the connection, friends?

Here’s what I mean:

Let’s Review What SurveyGizmo Just Did

• Focus on Making a Great Product – SurveyGizmo invested in developing a product that delivers and is impressive.  It’s not just a shiny marketing campaign.
• Go Viral by Making it Easy to Spread – SurveyGizmo’s customers spread the word virally by using the product to conduct surveys, such as how I learned about it from Dan.  Genius.
• Get More Personal with Customers – New customers are immediately embraced and thanked in a very personal offline way that is rather unexpected.
• Humanize Your Company – Rather than send a catalog with more products (like some companies still do), the team at SurveyGizmo sends a creative mailer with introductions to the humans who make up the company.

While I don’t have any access to the data to prove this, I’m willing to bet that a possible outcome of SurveyGizmo’s efforts is an extremely high customer retention rate.  (Folks at SurveyGizmo, please feel free to share that in the comments if you’re willing and able…)

Being Reminded of Little Things
I used to be really good about taking time for the little, personal human touches.  Treating people like human beings is how I built my network of friends, as well as professional connections.  Yet, somewhere along the path, I’ve gotten away from things like handwritten notes and simple, personal phone calls to say “congrats!” or “happy birthday.”  I use Facebook for that now, along with almost 500 million other users and hundreds of thousands of companies who, like me, buy into that machine and set of norms and processes.

As I type, I find it ironic that a single customer experience with SurveyGizmo and the humans behind their business has reminded me about the foundation upon which my own business has its roots.

What have I learned?  I need to readjust.  I need to do better at getting back to my roots.  Stay tuned…

What about you? Where are your business roots?  Are they still important or have the been buried under overgrowth?

nateriggs

I advise mid-sized & large organizations on how to adopt and use social media to market through organizational culture and better serve their clients. I'm also a blended family dad who enjoys music, photography and distance racing. When I'm not writing here, you can find me writing over at the Content Marketing Institute. Like what you've read so far? Then why not subscribe HERE?

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