Here’s the logic: customer engagement is predicated on establishing connections, which in turn are predicated on effective communication, and effective communication begins with listening.  As the influential psychologist Carl Rogers famously said, inability to communicate is a result of a failure to listen effectively.  Surveys are a great way to both listen to individual prospects and to gain the collective pulse of your target audience.  From these responses, you can form a personalized approach tailored to a specific prospect, as well as develop a broader approach for your segment based on insights of commercial value. 

Here are 5 critical advantages account-based surveys can provide to drive customer engagement:

1. Know your audience.  Craft questions to identify what challenges prospect have, as well as what their pain points and goals are.  Also of value are questions regarding typical roadblocks, their buying process, and priorities, as well as where they seek out information.  Researching those same sources will reveal what topics most interest prospects and which questions they may be asking – not only will you gain keen insights into information gaps and concerns, but you’ll also know where to go to influence conversations.

2. Gain personal insights to emotionally connect with individual prospects.  Account-based surveys help pave the path for the authentic, trust-based relationship required of complex sales, by providing the customer intelligence required for meaningful engagement.  Beyond gaining information regarding organizational objectives, etc., gleaning what is of personal value to respondents/decision-makers will permit you to craft messaging that resonates deeply on a more emotional level. 

3. Understand the context & impediments.  Aggregate survey results provide a snapshot of segment trends, behaviors, challenges, etc. Such reports, in addition to the individual responses, allow sales to a) have a conversation about the differences and b) create urgency within those that are below segment benchmarks.  Survey questions can also reveal impediments to your offering; e.g., what solutions have others in the industry adopted? Do they work?  Does the survey sponsor have a better solution?

4. Develop commercial insights to create urgency.  Design survey questions to both gain and communicate unique perspectives on your prospect’s personal and organizational challenges, and how your offering uniquely addresses those issues.  Seek to discover, and then highlight, the connection between your differentiators and your prospect’s key concerns.

5. Gauge propensity to buy.  By investigating challenges and issues, account-based surveys can help sales identify prospects who are currently experiencing pain and, thus, more likely to buy in the near term.  Account-based surveys ask decision makers to respond to a short list of questions. As respondents are able to review the questions before they decide whether to participate, those who do are knowingly opting-in and initiating engagement.

It’s always good to recall, that regardless of your messaging, proof points, and rational appeal, people make buying decision to meet their varied needs, often via convoluted reasoning – B2B or not.  Using account-based surveys helps you to discover those reasons by creating an opportunity for you to listen in on your audience and truly hear what shapes their thinking.

SimplyDIRECT’s account-based survey services provide the means to engage directly with individual C-level executives and to better understand their business and emotional needs and challenges. Armed with this customer intelligence sales is better able to foster a personal relationship by helping prospects meet their needs.

To learn more about SimplyDIRECT’s approach please download our account-based survey process infographic.