We just finished a project of interviewing financial advisors. Each interview was done over the phone and lasted 20 to 30 minutes. We reached out to a set of advisors meeting the client's desired profile. We provided a calendy link in an email and asked them to pick a day and a time. We had a 20% response rate. Even more remarkable, every advisor who signed up attended their interview.
Advisors were gracious, curious and freely spoke about their practice. All answers were confidential and reporting was done in aggregate. Not only did we pull some valuable insights, but we delved into the context of their answers, intuitions and attitudes. We learned what's holdng them back from using our client more. What our client needs to do to gain more business and how they should do it. The answers were some small initiatives that never would have been revealed in an online survey.
How did we reach our response and attendance rates? We gave the advisors the findings of the study that will to help them with their practice. Several commented how much they appreciated the results of our work.
Talking with customers often reveals solutions that never would have been revealed if we aren't listening.