Demos play a significant role in attracting customers when it comes to SaaS businesses. Demos provide the first chance for SaaS business owners to show their ‘best face’ and attract customers. But is it enough to provide a demo to customers? Most probably no! All efforts to provide a demo can go in vain if we fail to identify buyers’ intentions and gauge the impact the demo has on a customer. The post-demo survey can play a significant role by interpreting the demo’s effect and buyers’ intention.

We cannot undermine the importance of a post-demo survey for a B2B SaaS business. In this blog, we try to decipher this from the perspective of SaaS sales demo teams. Read on to understand what benefits you can reap with post-demo surveys.

What is a Post-Demo Survey?

Needless to say, before deciphering the importance of a post-demo survey, we need to understand what exactly a post-demo survey is?

As the name suggests, a post-demo survey is a survey conducted after a demo has been given to a customer. You or any B2B SaaS business may be confident about their SaaS product and incredibly happy after a customer has taken their demo. But, a demo is not about making the offerer happy; it is about the feeling of the one who was given the demo. The result of a demo depends on the feeling of the customer rather than the offering company.

You can expect a lead to convert only when they are happy with the demo of your SaaS product. A post-demo survey helps you understand the lead’s reaction. It helps you understand what part or feature of your SaaS product was liked and what part or feature needs a little tweaking to fulfill your customers’ needs or demands. And, you cannot get an answer to these questions unless you ask your customers and record their responses. A post-demo survey allows you to ask those questions and receive the responses directly from your customers.

Benefits of a Post-Demo Survey

By now, it might be clear that a post-demo survey is beneficial for any B2B SaaS business. But, let us break and explain the benefits to make things much clearer.

You Get to Know Your Customers

The first important thing about a survey conducted by any business is that they get to know their customers better. Post-demo survey makes this more beneficial as the questions and responses of customers are laser-focused on the business’s product and customers’ expectations from that product. The survey lets you understand the needs and expectations of your customers. The more you understand your customers, the better you can perform in your business.

You Get Valuable Feedback

The ultimate goal of a post-demo survey is to get feedback from your customers. When we say feedback, we mean both positive and negative feedback. It is about getting an honest review of your SaaS product. Do not be obsessed with getting positive reviews. When a customer points out negative things after taking the demo, see it as an opportunity for improvement of your product. No amount of testing and in-house discussions can give you the value of genuine customer feedback. Taking a third-person view of your product is important to understand its strengths and weaknesses, and customer feedback gives you just that. And this value comes at an exceptionally low investment of extra money and effort.

You Can Develop Effective Marketing Strategies

Post-event survey questions let you identify the current market trends and demands. This understanding gives you the chance to develop effective marketing strategies. The responses from your customers give you an idea of what other options are available for them in the market for customers. When you know your customers’ expectations and the options available, you can very easily develop effective marketing strategies to make your SaaS product stand out in the crowd. An effective marketing strategy can help you spread your business to a wider audience.

Can Help You Attract More Sponsors

Post-demo survey report is a document that keeps you in a win-win situation. As explained earlier, negative reviews show you exactly where you must improve. On the other hand, if the responses to your post-event survey questions reflect that your audiences like your SaaS product, you can utilize it to attract more sponsors. A positive survey result screams about your product’s ability to succeed in the market. It shows the growth potentiality of your business. And this can be utilized to attract sponsors and pave the path for success for your SaaS product and your business.  

Tips on Creating an Effective Post-Demo Survey

You already know how valuable a post-demo survey can prove for your B2B SaaS business. So, now let us see a few tips on creating an effective post-demo survey. These tips will help you garner maximum benefits with minimum effort.

Do the Survey as Quickly as Possible

Forgetfulness is an important characteristic of the human brain. The more time you take to send survey questions, the more likely the respondents will forget your actual experience while taking the product demo. So, be quick in sending the survey questions. The quicker you send survey questions the more accurate your customers’ responses will be. The more accurate the feedback, the more beneficial it is for you. Ensure you send survey questions within 24 hours of your customer taking the demo.

Keep Your Survey Questions Simple

Remember, you are creating survey questions and not setting question papers for academic exams. Keep your questions short and simple so that customers can understand and respond to the questions easily. You do not want to confuse your customers with lengthy and complex questions. This may lead to confusing or even wrong feedback from your customers’ end. The questions should be straight, to-the-point and easy to understand. Do not use complex words or industry jargon. Formulate the questions in layman’s language.

Use Right Balance of Objective and Subjective Questions

Answering yes/no questions or MCQs is the least time-consuming for a respondent. Your audience, even when they are happy with your demo, may not want to take the effort of answering long-form questions. So, the safest way is to form multiple choice questions for your survey. But, everything cannot be covered with yes/no or MCQ-type questions. Therefore, it is especially important to strike a balance between objective and subjective questions. Though most (or almost all) questions should be multi-choice, there should always be the scope for respondents to elaborate their answers if they want to.   

Keep Your Survey Concise

It is not enough to keep your questions simple. You need to keep the number of questions low. A long survey question may overwhelm the respondent; in many cases, the respondent may decide not to participate. Even when you let a lead take a demo of your SaaS product, you cannot bind them to fill a survey form or answer your questions. So, if you want to extract feedback, you need to keep things easier on the part of the respondent. You cannot make your survey complex or lengthy.    

Create Connection with Your Audience

Last but not least, as a business owner or executive, you should never miss a chance to build connections and bonds with your customers. A small step like mentioning the respondent’s name as a greeting in the beginning can create a connection. Personalization is always a promising idea when connecting with your audience. At the end of the survey, you should thank your customers for giving you their precious time. Small gestures like addressing someone with their name and thanking them for their time and effort can go a long way in building a connection.

Final Thoughts

Post-demo surveys are one of the biggest missed opportunities in the field of marketing today. SaaS sales team can reap multi-faceted benefits with demo and post-demo surveys. In this write-up, we have explained the benefits of these surveys and their overall impact on SaaS product development and their marketing and sales. Further, we have fully provided the important tips to utilize these surveys for sales growth. Hope you understand the importance of a post-demo survey and utilize it to grow your B2B SaaS business.   

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