I recently had a client that was considering a switch in how they price and package their products. As this can obviously be a sensitive issue, they wanted to get the buy in and feedback from their customers.
This client is Woody’s Wood-Fired Tavern, a pizza focused restaurant with locations along Colorado's Front Range. They are most well known for their pizza and salad bar, which offer up tasty goodness in the form of customer requested pizzas (and honey made available for the crust makes every piece dessert). They were looking to change how they package the pizza and salad bar as well as potentially moving away from the salad bar altogether to a “served to order” method.
What We Did
They could have asked their customers to complete in-the-restaurant surveys, but tracking individual answers would have been a nightmare (tallying the results for 4 different locations by hand). We instead opted to take advantage of the already successful email marketing system to get the feedback we needed in a controlled and trackable environment. I’ve used Wufoo for the tracking and crazy nice reporting based on the results, so it was a natural choice for this short term feedback scenario. We sent a marketed email with a request for customers to fill out a simple survey. The results gave Woody’s a customer backed direction to move forward in what could have been a hotly contested move.
How We Did It
I worked with Woody’s management to streamline the questions they needed answered to ensure the lowest possible abandonment rate (when there are too many questions, people find themselves bored and may stop answering; even worse are those who don’t think about their responses and complete the form as fast as possible).
Email Newsletter
The initial email newsletter briefly explained the situation and requested users complete the short survey. In return, Woody’s offered a free meal for the the first 500 to respond (generating a sense of urgency and a feeling of exclusivity).
The Survey
After the name and email fields we required only five multiple choice questions, which quickly got to the heart of the matter. In and out without much fuss. Wufoo allows you to add little notes for each field that appear only when hovered over or active. This keeps the form clean, while giving the option of clarifying or explaining a field. We used it to explain why we needed names and email addresses.
Confirmation Email Setup
After completing the survey, respondents are shown a confirmation screen and asked to check their inbox for the coupon. Rather than trying to get too fancy and import respondents information into a separate database, we took advantage of Wufoo’s auto-confirmation email option to handle the email coupon. With a little planning, we were able to use the basic HTML email template used for all Woody’s email marketing and automatically insert the recipient’s name, email address, and their preferred location directly into the coupon.
Email Coupon & Confirmation
As was explained in the initial request for survey respondents, the survey was limited to the first 500 and for a limited time. We reached the 500 respondents limit in a few days. Of the 500 that received coupons, 400 brought them into the restaurants. And let’s be honest, not many people dine alone, so even those that received the free meal most likely brought friends and family with them, making it a great success for Woody’s.
Survey Results
Based on the reports we received after the survey was completed, Woody’s was able to make a decision they were confident the majority of their existing customers would be happy with. We also included a general “Anything else you’d like us to know regarding our pizza and/or salad bar?” question. This gave another chance for customers to give insight into how they specifically use the pizza and salad bar system. Most answers here were a general, “I like it the way it is” or “The salad bar is half the reason I order the pizza bar.” A few, however, offer a bit more depth: “We love coming in after our teens baseball games. So easy! Would be awesome to see some things to add on like discounted hot wings w/ purchase of pizza/salad bar. They go so great together.”
Using the existing email marketing system to initiate a customer survey allowed Woody’s to make a difficult business decision with genuine customer support. Of course there are those that will be disappointed, but knowing your decisions are backed by the majority is always nice.
About The Author
Matt Crest runs a communication design studio in Denver, Colorado. He likes his wife, ampersands, bicycles, and trying to figure things out. Learn More.