This article explains the benefits of conducting a customer satisfaction survey on your competitors. If your competitors’ customers are dissatisfied, they become easy sales targets. But you still need access to them. We explain how in this article.
Competitor customer satisfaction research is the best way to identify competitors’ weaknesses. The information you glean from it is invaluable in the B2B sales process. It enables you to position your product exactly where it adds value for the customer. This increases your chances of converting customers. However, this type of satisfaction research requires access to competitors’ customers. This is a point we address in this article.
Contact IntoTheMinds for your competitor satisfaction survey
If you only have 30 seconds
- Measuring the satisfaction of your competitors’ customers is an incredibly effective way of identifying potential prospects. Dissatisfied customers are more likely to change suppliers.
- The satisfaction questionnaire must be adapted to your objectives when focused on the competition. This means measuring other variables in addition to satisfaction to facilitate sales prospecting.
- The most complicated part of the exercise concerns access to your competitors’ customers. You have a very extensive network that you can call on or call on a firm with a database that can be mobilized. In the latter case, don’t hesitate to contact us, as we have what you’re looking for😉
Case Study: Saint-Gobain
PAM Saint-Gobain asked us to help them reposition their brand. We also needed to understand the competitors’ weaknesses to understand the company’s strengths fully. We could tap into a customer and prospect database of 20,000 names and, after segmentation, collect 500 responses. With such a volume of data, the insights were rich and precise, enabling the branding agency to do its work on a factual basis.
etude-de-marche-industrie-saint-gobain-fr
Why conduct a competitor customer satisfaction survey?
When it comes to selling your product successfully in B2B, there are only 2 possible scenarios:
- The prospect is not yet equipped and is looking to become so. In this case, you have a sales opportunity if they contact you.
- Or the prospect is already equipped (using a competitor’s product), so you must convince him to switch. Having information on their level of satisfaction is a very important advantage, as it enables you to adapt your sales pitch.
Let’s be clear right away. These 2 scenarios are complementary, but each has its advantages and disadvantages.
| Advantages | Disadvantages | |
|---|---|---|
| Customer not yet equipped | The customer must choose, so you may be chosen. | The customer must consult you before you can be chosen. |
| Customer already equipped | Easier to identify. The presence of the product proves the need. | The customer must abandon the previous product in favor of yours. |
How to measure your competitors’ satisfaction
A B2B competitor satisfaction survey is the same as a traditional customer satisfaction survey:
- you start by measuring overall satisfaction (via Net Promoter Score, for example)
- you drill down into certain dimensions to precisely understand why and where scores are higher or lower.
However, the detailed questions you ask will make a difference. Your goals are to
- detect which aspects of the product are unsatisfactory
- measure the extent to which this dissatisfaction is a source of frustration and represents a “business” problem
- assess the customer’s willingness to change product
- identify decision-makers
Each satisfaction questionnaire will, therefore, be unique. It will depend on the product you want to sell and the one the prospect uses. Our tip: Take advantage of this satisfaction survey to measure your brand awareness. This could give you important clues when it comes to prospecting. If, for example, you find that most dissatisfied customers are familiar with your brand, your prospecting will be all the easier. The reverse is also true, so this insight is particularly crucial.
Contact us to design your personalized satisfaction questionnaire
In terms of questionnaire administration, we recommend a CAWI approach. This is inexpensive (because it’s carried out online) and enables you to collect many responses at a fixed cost. The only drawback is that you need to have access to competitors’ customers’ e-mail addresses and be able to count on their participation.
How to access your competitors’ customers
Access to respondents is the sinews of war. Without respondents, you won’t be able to carry out the survey.
Here are the 2 scenarios we have encountered in our B2B studies:
- The customer has a database with clear identification of prospects: you can use this database to administer your questionnaire. Don’t expect a high response rate. Under ideal conditions, you should expect a 10% response rate. To increase this rate, we refer you to this article.
- If you don’t have a list of your competitors’ customers, contact a market research firm specializing in B2B (our case) to use a B2B panel.
There’s also a third, more laborious route. That’s trade shows. Trade shows bring together people with similar profiles in one place. These people could all be potential customers.
- If you have a stand, you’re bound to be able to attract your competitors’ customers and ask them questions. The number of people involved will inevitably be smaller than in a quantitative survey, but the exchange will be like a qualitative interview. The information gathered will, therefore, be much more complete
- If you don’t have a stand, the challenge will be to identify your competitors’ prospects/potential customers and approach them. The method is a little more “pushy,” you probably won’t have time to gather much information, but at least a first contact will be established.
If you’d like to conduct this kind of research, we’d be delighted to help.
