Great Moves! Successful Ideas for Contemporary Dance Educators Customer Surveys Are the Key to Long Term Enrollment
Performance anxiety is a major problem for many, many people. Dancers are taught that practice helps avoid pre-performance nerves and college students are taught that being prepared for class will help them be less nervous for tests. Regardless of the plans and advance notice, an evaluation is likely to make a person feel apprehensive.
Evaluation is a fact of life in this highly competitive world, and dance schools are not immune to the criticism from students and the public. The trick to accepting evaluation of your business is to look at the information as a treasure trove of ideas for making your school the most attended and respected in the community. Think of it as a written test you study for every day you are in business. If you're willing to listen to or read about your customer's thoughts regarding your studio business, then you are on the right road to a complaint-free dance school.
Why do you care about customer satisfaction? Isn't there always another student coming in the front door for every one who's leaving through the back entrance in an angry puff of smoke? With the expense of advertising and facility maintenance, it costs much less to keep happy students in your studio long term than it does to spend money on replacing lost ones. Recognizing that your students are customers purchasing a service from your business will help you see them from a pragmatic perspective as well as an artistic one.
1. Make a list of the pros and cons about your studio. Most people don't like tests. If you look at a customer evaluation as a test you have no control over, then you won't be able to see the value of the customer's responses. The first step to addressing evaluation-phobia is within you. Tape together two sheets of legal size paper top to bottom. Draw a line down the center top to bottom. Label one column "What's good about my studio" and the other side "What could be better about my studio." Take ten minutes and create a detailed list with as many items on each side of the list as you can think of. List every detail from "restrooms are always clean" to "need more parking closer to the entrance." Don't hesitate to write something down pro or con on your list. No one has to see this list unless you decide to use it at a staff meeting concerning customer satisfaction.
If you have more on the negative side than the positive side of your lists, you should first address some of the issues that need changed in your mind. If you see them as weaknesses, you can be guaranteed that your students already see them as problems. These are problems that may turn some students away. Fixing some of your studio negatives before you ask customers for an evaluation of your business is a constructive way to improve your business and to increase the possibility of more positive responses to the survey. Visible improvements around the studio are one way to prevent customer complaints. It also helps put them in a better frame of mind when you distribute the survey asking what they think about your studio.
2. Look at the studio through your student's eyes. The studio may have your name on it and it may seem at times like it's an extension of your body, but it's just another business on the street to most people. And while they appreciate the personal attention they receive from you, they expect you to be able to separate yourself from your business and act like a professional whenever necessary. It's necessary to step outside of your personal investment in the studio and look at it from your customer's eyes. What do they see, hear, feel, question, experience, like, and dislike when they come to your studio? Granted you can't please everyone. Being compassionate to the perspectives of your customers is a means to pleasing as many as is possible.
3. Create survey questions based on what you learned from the first two exercises. Based on the information you uncovered in the first two exercises, design a short survey for your students to complete and return to you. You might want to start with a master list of questions to be asked over several months. Choose different questions for every survey.
4. Collect the surveys. Clearly note on the survey the deadline for returning it and exactly where they should be taken. A neutral drop box is better than hand-to-hand contact. It's up to you if you have a space for names, but an anonymous questionnaire gets more honest, useful information.
5. Review the surveys when you are calm and have sufficient time to read them. Set the collected evaluations aside for at least a week after the deadline. Choose a time when you are rested and calm to read them. Read each one without stopping. Go back through with two different colored markers and highlight positive comments in one color and constructive criticism in another color.
6. Make a new list of customer pros and cons. Now create two new lists showing what your customers like and what they don't. The customer isn't always right. Sometimes they have a complaint based on a lack of information. These complaints are easily amended by contacting students in a general announcement that addresses the complaint listed on the survey.
7. Highlight the negatives mentioned in the surveys and choose one to tackle. Instead of feeling overwhelmed or depressed by any negatives on the surveys, return to the eyes of your customers and try to see things from their point of view. Don't take the negatives personally. Some of the customer complaints on the surveys can be remedied by more communication and other problems may require time and money. Only you can decide if this is the case.
8. Publicize the change to your students. Again, communication with your clientele is a wonderfully inexpensive means to improving customer satisfaction. When you've made a change in response to the surveys, let your students know by sending letters and thanking everyone for completing the evaluations. Those who didn't bother to fill one out will be the first ones to return them the next round.
Here is a breakdown of the steps to surveying your students.
1. Make a list of the pros and cons about your studio.
2. Look at the studio through your student's eyes.
3. Create survey questions based on what you learned from the first two exercises.
4. Collect the surveys.
5. Review the surveys when you are calm and have sufficient time to read them.
6. Make a new list of customer pros and cons.
7. Highlight the negatives mentioned in the surveys and choose one to tackle.
8. Publicize the change to your students.
Chances are very good that you'll receive a great many positive remarks from your customers. Regular student surveys will help you build up a tolerance to customer commentary. It isn't easy. Just don't take it personally and the process will enable you to be sensitive to customer needs which will keep students returning year after year.
Joy Held is a dance and yoga instructor and the author of Writer Wellness, A Writer's Path to Health and Creativity, New Leaf Books, 2003. Contact her at yogajoy@suddenlink.net.