Big Bob's Flooring Outlets Customer Comment Cards

During Surfaces 2010, Scott Perron, Paul Friederichsen and I presented a three-hour workshop titled "Marketing In A Recession 101." During that session, Scott, who is president of Big Bob's Flooring Outlets of America, Inc. headquartered in Kansas City, MO, brought up the customer comment cards that Big Bob's sends out to customers in the Kansas City area.

As you can see from this video, Scott and Big Bob's are serious about delivering superior service to their customers. The customer comment card monitors customer satisfaction and marketing effectiveness by offering customers the means to easily provide feedback on their Big Bob's retail experience.

So many seminar participants had questions about the customer comment cards that I thought I would ask Scott to discuss them in more detail here. If I've missed anything, please do let me know.

Big Bob's Flooring Outlets Customer Comment Cards

Scott, many of our seminar attendees expressed interest in your customer comment cards. What are these cards?

These are customer survey cards we send out to customers with our thank you cards [see image below] and bounce back coupons.

How does Big Bob’s in Kansas City use them?

We use these customer comment cards to source our customer shopping experience and to ascertain how customers were motivated to shop at our store.

These are the questions we ask on the cards:

+ Are you a first time customer?
+ What did you purchase?
+ How did you hear about Big Bob's TV?
+ Were you offered interest free financing?
+ Was our store clean and easy to shop?
+ Was our service rep professional and courteous?
+ Was our independent contractor professional?
+ How many stores did you shop before purchasing?

Why do you ask these questions?

The answers to these questions when measured and managed properly represent one of the most valuable tools you have at your disposal. Plus, employees typically do a poor job with “accurately” sourcing their customers where we believe the consumers answers are transparent.

We review every card the customers return and capture the information in a spreadsheet [see image below].

Are you satisfied with the response rate? Why?

Yes, we're very satisfied. Through our first 12 months of implementing this system we have experienced over a 13% return rate.

Wow! That is impressive! What kind of insights do you get from the responses?

The main insight was how customers found us. Then we track their answers to determine if anyone is dissatisfied with our services. We contact those consumers immediately and rectify the issue.

What do you do with the information?

We decide where to spend our advertising dollars and when and how to train our employees and installation teams to service our customer better.

How long have you been doing this?

A total of 16 months now. We implemented the program in late 2008.

Do you recommend that other retailers adopt this practice?

Absolutely no question about it…We pay only $.97 each to print the cards, envelopes, bounce back coupon and survey card with mailing cost both directions. It is the least expensive focus group you can do for your business and everyone should be thanking their customer…If you don’t, someone else will.


Any other info to add?

Be sure to ask for e-mail addresses so you can continue to market to your warm circle of customers.

Thank you, Scott!

Do you send out customer comment cards? What kinds of questions do you ask?

How else do you keep a finger on the pulse of your customers and their reaction to your retail experience?


You can reach Scott at Big Bob's Flooring Outlets of America, Inc., 10001 W. 75th St., Shawnee Mission, KS 66204; his email is scott [at] bigbobsflooring [dot] com.

Other posts relating to our Marketing in a Recession 101 workshop:
+ Connecting With Retail Consumers - Marketing Strategy Series
+ Marketing In A Recession - Strategy Series
+ Marketing In A Recession - September Update