If you are preparing your company’s survey or feedback forms, take a lesson from the U.S. Census Bureau. In 1995, while they were beginning preparations for Census 2000, they spent time rethinking the effectiveness of the Census forms in creating a desire to participate. They realized the forms were unappealing and hard to follow, and because they wanted to generate a 100% response rate, they needed to find a way to boost people’s desire to participate. What they came up with was a fresh look that combined fact gathering and encouraging language with a fluid design and color scheme.

While the sheer volume of participants in the 2000 Census make this project seem irrelevant to the information gathering of a small company, there are many things that can be learned about form and function from the Census design.

• Keep your design simple.
• Use colors that set people at ease.
• Consider the use of rounded shapes and lines, which are more appealing than rigid boxes.
• Inform the participants of the value of their responses.
• Make your form a safe place to divulge information.

Customers want their voices to be heard. When you ask them questions about themselves, you are giving them a place to participate in the future decisions of your company. Presenting your request for information in a way that makes them comfortable and eager to participate will increase your response rate and ultimately, your bottom line.

Customer reverence is felt by the heart and planned by the mind. Show your customer how much you appreciate them by sending:

A thank-you note within 48 hours of each purchase, although 24 hours is more impressive and memorable. Anyone can send a thank-you note. Guerrillas do it ASAP.

• An offer of an item related to their purchase, tendered about 30 days after the purchase. The offer can be for a product or service.
• A questionnaire. Send each new customer a questionnaire to learn more about them and their interests.
• A birthday card. Use the questionnaire mentioned above to learn each customer’s birthday — month and day, not year. Then, send them a card when their birthday rolls around. Later, you can expand this tactic by sending graduation cards to the customer’s kids, anniversary cards to the customer and spouse, and postcards from your next vacation. Don’t overwhelm your customers, but continue to acknowledge their existence.
• A newsletter, sent monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly. If it’s created with customer reverence in mind, it will give more than it asks, provide valuable free information, and still make offers to sell something.
• A catalogue of your offerings, sent only to customers or sent first to customers, then to prospects, if your customer list isn’t long enough. Customers will especially appreciate a catalogue that clearly communicates it is for customers only.
• A fact-of-interest postcard, sent in the purest sense of customer reverence. Give data that can help your customer, without trying to sell anything. Keep it brief, and customers will actually look forward to your mailings — a dream world for most, but the standard situation for guerrillas.
• Here are some of the more popular and creative ways to use postcards:
• Thank you cards… have a picture of your business or organization printed on the front.
• New product announcements… place a picture of the product on the front.
• New employee announcements… feature the new employee’s picture on the front, with their contact information on the back.
• Card pack inserts.
• Customer follow-up mailings designed to create loyalty.
• Low-cost direct mail marketing.

If you don’t stay in contact with your customers, somebody else may win them away from you. By constantly fanning the flames of love and loyalty, you will prove beyond any words that you revere your customers, while at the same time safeguarding against apathy.