Often the business owners I work with fall into two camps: those that don’t utilize forms & questionnaires at all and those that get a little carried away. I get it. It can be a delicate balance. You certainly want to collect *some* information from your clients BUT expecting them to fill out an hour’s worth of questions is likely to lead to serious bottlenecks – because ain’t nobody got time for that!
It’s important to remember that forms and questionnaires aren’t just to make your life easier, they should also make your client’s life easier too. If you keep this in mind when creating your forms and questionnaires and follow a few key rules, then you’ll find your saving time not wasting time following up over and over again.
Some client form/questionnaire rules to live by:
Tell me what you want, what you really, really want. (Song reference, anyone???)
Review the questions you’re asking and make sure it’s information that you ACTUALLY need to know. Take a look at each question you’re including on your form and ask yourself, “How will I use this information?”. If you don’t have a clear answer, then don’t include it.
I was recently on a call with a business owner who fell into camp 2 (they got a little carried away with their forms). When I asked her why she was including a particular question on her form, her response was, “I thought I might need to know”.
Look, I’m certainly not picking on her. She was by no means the only biz owner to give an answer like that. I’ve heard this many times before. I’ve also heard answers like:
-it was just on the template I downloaded
-I saw it on someone else’s form so I thought I should use it to
-I thought the question was fun
Don’t waste your client’s time answering questions you don’t need to know the answer to.
And that doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun with your forms. By all means ask their birthday and whether they prefer coffee or tea. You can USE this information! Send them their preference (coffee or tea) on their birthday. Send them their favorite snack as their new client gift or for Christmas. But don’t ask their fav snack if you don’t plan on doing anything about it.
Remember the 5 minute rule.
A form/questionnaire should take no longer than 5 minutes to fill out. Think about the last time you received a form you had to fill out. Maybe you were at the doctor’s office and they handed you the dreaded clipboard. First thing you likely did was scan the first page and then flip through and see how many you had to fill out.
Sweet! The last 3 pages all you have to do is sign!
I think you see where I’m going with this. Your client is doing the SAME thing when they receive your form in their inbox. They’re going to quickly scroll and see “how long is this gonna take?”.
And I can guarantee, if it looks like it’s going to take longer than 5 minutes they’re going to consider doing it later, i.e. NOT do it until you follow up with them OR they are going to complete it half-assed which doesn’t do anyone any good.
Keep your questions short and sweet.
If you really do need a lot of information from your client, consider breaking the questions up into a couple of forms. Better yet, schedule a phone call. Trust me, it seems like getting them on the phone will take more time then just sending them an email but remember, the forms should make your life AND your client’s life easier.
Plus, when you consider all the following up your going to do, is it really longer to get them on the phone?
Pro tip: Delegate this quick phone call to a VA or team member.
Don’t ask questions with complicated answers.
Just as it shouldn’t take a long time to fill out, your forms should not include questions that are overly complicated. This could fall under one of two categories: technical info that is likely out of your client’s wheelhouse OR questions that are going to require a paragraph (or two) to answer.
Again, this will cause MAJOR bottlenecks.
Don’t ask your client to look up their IP address or send you images that are camera-ready. They likely don’t know what this means and I assure you, it’s going to be a form never gets filled out OR they are just going to skip the question all together. So, what’s the point?
If you need information that is techy or likely something your client isn’t familiar with, schedule a phone call and walk them through it. Depending on how complicated it is, you can also record yourself collecting the information and then send them a video tutorial. But please, don’t leave them hanging.
Same goes for questions that will require a paragraph or more to answer. Schedule a call. People are WAY more inclined to give you everything you need (i.e. not skimp on details) when they can just talk to you.