1) Do you know why you are asking these questions?

You want to be sure you know why you’re asking each one. It’s a good idea to write down the answers to the following questions beforehand:

•What is the purpose of my survey?
•Why am I making this survey?
•What do I hope to accomplish?
•How do I plan on using the data that I collect?
•How will the data influence my decisions?

Although these all may seem obvious, it is surprising how much difference a bit more attention and some planning ahead can make when you have a sea of data to look through at the end of the research process.

2) Slow down. Plan ahead.

Take time to zero in on the survey’s goal. One survey can’t fix your business, so try to prioritise what you need to know. Should you try to understand customers’ overall perceptions of the business or are you focusing on specific improvements, such as pricing, brand image or product development? For general perceptions, open questions can help, but for more specific enhancements, it may be better to ask respondents to rank from 1-5 the importance of each area.

3) Keep it fuss-free. Keep it simple.

Write straightforward, easy-to-read questions using language that your audience will understand. Avoid extra words or using lots of jargon whenever possible.

How not do do it: “How useful do you find our call centre staff and website services?”

Here, customers are being forced to rate two services in a single question. They may think one is poor and one excellent, but you have no way of knowing. Split questions up to make sure customers can easily answer. That way, you will get results you can use.

With rating questions, it may be useful to include a range of answer choices.

Example:
•Extremely useful
•Very useful
•Moderately useful
•Slightly useful
•Not at all useful

4) Spare a thought for customers – don’t over survey or ask too many questions

Customers have a day job to do, so think carefully before you send out surveys. If you are trying to generate content for press releases, it may be worth choosing a small, representative section of your customers each time, rather than surveying your entire database.

This ensures that when you have key questions to ask about how to develop your business, you get the response levels you need.

Also, put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Test the survey internally with time-pressed colleagues and see how they react. If they get confused or bored, then consider revising your approach, as it’s likely people will drop out before they finish your questions.

Best of luck with future surveys.

* adapted from a blog published here

With fuel now costing £6 a gallon and raw material costs driving up the price of most vehicle parts, such as tyres, we are hearing increasing numbers of reports about theft and fraud in the fleet sector.

Fuel theft through siphoning of tanks is being reported throughout the country. Petrol stations are clearly at risk, but HGV operators and anyone with a fuel storage tank on site is also a target. Even cars are being targeted in some cases.

But this isn’t just the work of criminal gangs, as white and blue collar crime can be just as costly.

For example, drivers may see little harm in claiming ‘phantom’ miles for journeys. This could be by adding a few extra miles to journeys to boost the value of a claim, or simply listing journeys that never actually took place.

Other scams include filling up a private car with a company fuel card intended for use only with a company car.

For an individual employee, it can seem a victimless crime, with a few extra pounds each month helping their bank balance without being a noticeable sum to their employer.

What they fail to consider is that if everybody is taking the same approach (and our research shows it is increasingly common) the amounts quickly turn into tens of thousands of pounds 

In one case, a fuel card scam at a fleet, which operated just over 100 vehicles, cost the business £250,000 before it was spotted.

It certainly gives cause for concern, but it also reveals a real need for services that can help businesses identify and combat this ongoing problem.

One of the most common methods is to use a pence-per-mile (ppm) figure to identify the comparative costs of two models. If one car costs 52ppm and the second 38ppm, the cheaper one is likely to win if all costs have been included correctly.

But the team here at Sewells likes to challenge conventional wisdom and we believe there is a new method that is worth consideration – cost per hour or cost per day. Most other areas of business costs are time-based, so why not vehicles?

Time-based measurements recognise that vehicles don’t just cost money when they are moving. Vehicles cost money when they are parked too (for insurance, depreciation for age and even parking damage from other car users).

Calculating the cost is quite similar to mileage-based costings. You start by establishing the overall vehicle cost. As an example, take a vehicle that will cost around £15,000 over three years. This cost is then divided by the number of days it will be run, not by the expected mileage.

So instead of the vehicle costing 35ppm, it is now listed as costing £13 a day. This figure than then be used for a range of benchmarking activities.

For example, if most of the cars in a fleet are perk vehicles, how much does it cost the company to provide vehicles vehicles to staff per week. Using this model, the answer is around £13,000 a week.

They say time is money and this approach shows this is certainly true of company cars.

I wanted to compare notes, as our research indicates that the most difficult times are far from over for many dealers.

While many have weathered the economic storm of the past few years very well, few have a strategy that has planned for the current economic climate.

After all, it is very difficult to plan for international conflicts driving up oil prices and falling business confidence caused by commodity price increases.

Many dealerships are looking for advice and information more than ever and our discussions were centred on the type of services dealers are likely to need and how suppliers can ensure they are first to market when a requirement is identified.

We are now working on a discussion document to assess the issues before looking at a more detailed research programme.

Whatever the result, it will be fascinating to see how dealers respond to such a tough market over the next few months.