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For our last issue on surveys, we sat down with the Motley Fool (well, OK, we didn't actually sit down with them, but we were on the phone with them; I think they were sitting) and asked them how using surveys has helped them refine their product offerings. We spoke with Product Manager Rebekah Hughes (she's designated as "Fool" in the interview, because, well, it's just more fun that way).
For those of you who may not be familiar with The Motley Fool, it's a very cool Web site about personal finance. (And no, they are not paying me to say this). It's run by two brothers, Tom and Dave Gardner, who first started the site under the auspices of AOL waaaay back when I worked there. Now they have their own site on the Web, and they seem to have figured out 1) how to make learning about finance fun, and 2) how to compete and survive in the cutthroat post-dot-bomb world. They've now got all sorts of products, including books, stock advisor newsletters, and even t-shirts.
So check out our conversation with them, and if you have a chance, and want to see smart money people wearing silly court jester hats, check out their Web site as well.
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MES: What surveys have you done and how have they helped you as a business?
Fool: We do a bunch of different surveys all the time throughout the year. We do customer satisfaction surveys, for our Web site in general and for each of the products that we offer.
That gives us a really good gauge on how people are using the products; if they are satisfied with the quality and the attributes of the products and service, or if there are any improvements we can make that would make the product more interesting.
MES: Can you think of an example?
Fool: Sure. We just recently launched a new investment newsletter. It kind of morphed out of an investment newsletter we've been producing over a year and a half. We've been running customer satisfaction surveys to that old newsletter group all through their membership. One of the things that kept coming up time and time again was an offline component, where there would be a printed newsletter. [At the time] it was 100% online; you just downloaded the pdf [Adobe Acrobat file]. Well, now we're printing it, and sending it to your home offline.
MES: That's interesting; people just didn't want to take the time to print it out?
Fool: It was really tedious; it was a 25-page pdf. They're taking the time to download it, and it costs them paper and ink off their printer, so it was just a difficult process. I think it will turn out to be much better. The newsletter has only been in existence for two months now, but it's doing really great.
MES: How long have you been doing surveys?
Fool: The company has been around 10 years. We've probably been doing them at least the last seven to eight years.
One of the other types of surveys we do is new product idea surveys. For example, recently we put together a prototype and surveyed people's interest in a new product. We sent them out to people we thought would be most interested in it. It actually came back that there wasn't a lot of interest; and we were really surprised!
MES: What was the new product idea?
Fool: It was a more serious investor service. So there were a couple of different prototypes that we surveyed. It was something that was all data driven: charts and graphs, vs. a bundle of all the Motley Fool's products and services - the uber-bundle for the serious investor. We'd gotten a lot of feedback that's what people want. But when we actually put it out there, there wasn't much interest. So we're really glad we didn't go though all that.
MES: That saved you a lot of time and hassle. I would think that's one of the best uses of surveys; to decide what your new products are going to be or whether you should start selling, because you can guess at it and you can be totally wrong.*
So you use WebSurveyor http://www.websurveyor.com to do your surveys?
Fool: Yes, we were one of their first clients. We've stuck with them over the last several years. Their tool is really easy to use, and very flexible. You can make surveys on the fly and send them out in a matter of seconds. The other thing is, they've been so competitively priced for the service and product they provide.
MES: Thanks, Rebekah!
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Rebekah Hughes is The Motley Fool's Product Manager and can be reached by email at Rhughes@fool.com. You can visit The Motley Fool at http://www.fool.com.
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