Think you really know how your business is doing? Analyzing your business is not only about revenues and profits and market share, it’s also about customer satisfaction. And customer satisfaction isn’t about isolated instances of going above and beyond for a customer or a client; it’s about a commitment to ongoing improvement. That commitment starts with knowing how you’re doing by simply asking for feedback from your customers, regularly. Charles Schwab is one example of putting this mantra to work – successfully.

While the Schwab method may not make sense for all, there a way to foster a culture of customer satisfaction that is both easy and inexpensive: surveying your customers.

Here is a checklist of things to consider before launching your own online survey program:

1. Plan your schedule: you’ll first need to determine how often you’re going to survey your customers – daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. One thing to keep in mind is that while you want a lot of data, you don’t want to bombard the same people with the same survey. If you have a bevy of new customers on an ongoing basis, then it may make sense to potentially survey each new user. If you have a product or service with regular, steady customers, it’s probably best to survey on a semi-regular basis, such as quarterly.

2. Establish your key questions: surveys can be great for quickly getting you feedback on a new product or service idea, but the worst thing you can do is ask new questions every time. Your true goal is to measure customer satisfaction on an ongoing basis. In order to do that, you’ll need to decide on a series of questions that you ask each and every time you conduct the survey so you can trend results over time, in addition to including new questions from time to time as needed. An example of a recurring question to ask might be: ‘rate your satisfaction with our product/service on a scale of 1-10′, or the now popular Net Promoter Score question. Also make sure you think about how to word each question.

3. Decide how to execute: You want to make your survey both easy for you to execute and easy for your customer to complete. Some companies have the time, resources and budget to create their own surveys and reporting processes – but for the majority of us, online survey companies like SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang make it simple to design the question layout, send the survey to your customers and feature robust reporting to make analysis a breeze. Make sure to research your options and see what works for you.

4. Incent or not? You’ve probably seen examples of companies offering incentives for you to complete a survey – an iPhone, an AMEX gift card and all the rest, while others may not use an incentive and just rely on your desire to offer feedback instead. Ultimately, there’s no right or wrong answer to this question. Test both and see how many responses you get. If you can get enough responses to make you feel comfortable with the data – then not incenting is the way to go since your respondents are genuinely offering feedback and not merely after the prize. Whatever method you choose, just know that both options are at your disposal.

5. Arrange a follow-up process: while your immediate goal with executing a survey is to collect data to help you better run your business, there is also another aspect that can also be overlooked: excellent customer service opportunities. With the sophistication of online surveys these days, it’s easy to design your survey so you know how to match a response to a question with the actual customer. If you conclude your survey with an open field response question for general feedback (which you should), make sure to follow-up with respondents who had a question, complaint or even a compliment. You want to prove to your customers that you’re reading each and every response and not just looking at the data in aggregate.

Think you have an effective survey process? Share your thoughts below. In the future, we’ll cover other ways to gather feedback from your customers and clients.