Surveys for tour operators. How surveys can improve your tours and activities.

Surveys for tour operators. Truth is, surveys are for everyone, they’re great! Surveys are an amazing tool for gaining insights and figuring out how to improve your business.

Know your customer.

As we all know, the most important thing in business today is knowing your customers. You need to know what they want so you can offer a product they’ll buy. Getting into the minds of your customers can help you cut out unnecessary costs from things you include in your tour that they don’t want and instead, include things that they do want. 

But how do you get to know your customers better? Don’t worry, even though Netflix has 100 people specializing in data analytics, it doesn’t take rocket science to get started. In fact, all you need is pen and paper.

At the end of the day, the most efficient method to know your customers better is to talk to them and ask questions. When you ask a question, you usually get an answer, because science. 

Survey

One of the easiest and most effective ways to understand your customers better is through surveys. These are essentially questions on a piece of paper(could be online tool) that you send out to your customers. Once your customers answer the questions, you analyze them and adjust your tours and activities accordingly. 

Why use surveys?

• Faster
  You can get surveys done very quickly. Once you’ve got your questions, you just send them out to all your customers. You could even set it up so your survey is automatically sent out after your tours and activities. Responses are usually quick. In fact, more than half of survey respondents usually respond within the first 3 days.
• Cheaper
  Surveys are also extremely cheap to do. In fact, most service providers such as Survey Monkey provide a free-tier option. The only other cost would be any incentives you use such as prizes to entice your customers to respond to your surveys.
• Easy for participants.
  Most people prefer receiving surveys as compared to other methods like phone calls. This is because the respondent can decide when they want to fill up the survey. Surveys also don’t take long to fill up. This will increase the likelihood that your customers will respond to your survey.
• More honest
  Research suggests that respondents are more honest when completing surveys compared to any other forms of research. This is because they’re not in direct contact with the researcher and do not feel the need to please the researcher.
• Your customers will feel valued
  Your customers will feel like they’re being heard. They’ll feel more important because you’re taking what they’re saying into account. They’ll feel like they’re a part of the process and will become more loyal to your business.

How to use surveys?

Reception Desk

The easiest way to do surveys is to print out many copies of your survey and leave it on your reception or check-in desk. Once your customer has finished your tour or activity, hand them a copy and ask them to fill it out. Most of the time, your customers will be happy to do this.

Email

Another great way to do surveys is to use an online survey service like Survey Monkey. You can create your survey online then use a link to direct your customers to the survey. Send an email to your customers asking for feedback with the link that’ll redirect them to your survey. You could:

1. Set it up so the email is automatically sent to customers after they finish your tour or activity. This way, you’ll get continuous feedback so you’ll be able to continuously improve your business!
2. Send it out to all your past customers. You’ll get a bunch of feedback in one go and will be able to pick the most important points of improvement to start with. 

We recommend implementing surveys asap. If you’ve ever wondered why the Japanese are so damn good at what they do, it’s because they believe in the phrase ‘kaizen’ which means to improve continuously. In order to improve continuously, you need to know what to improve on, which is best learned through surveys. Essentially, use surveys, because science.

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