It can be extremely hard to motivate staff over the winter months. Before Christmas, all they want to do is finish for the festive season and once Christmas is gone, they will be yearning for warmer weather and light mornings, and finding the post-Christmas blues extremely hard to get over.
However, in the winter months there will also be far less custom around for many businesses and so any opportunity that is presented needs to be seized with both hands. With less motivation, there is a good chance that many of these opportunities will be missed at the exact time when they are needed the most.
As such, your workforce will need to feel that they are really achieving something and that they are genuinely valued, to ensure that they are spurred on. Knowing they will be rewarded for hard work over such a period may well help increase the chances of them getting real results and responding in the way they should, no matter how uninspired they feel.
However, with a lower workload in the winter, it may also simply be the perfect time for staff to be utilised for other purposes and, as such, the winter may be the perfect time to find out what customers really want and to in turn do something about it. Offering market research rewards to customers for taking part in surveys at a time when they may be looking for welcome distractions or will have more time on their hands will allow you to spend time focussing your company towards the desires of your core demographic in time for spring when the fight for high levels of custom begins again.
Just as your employees will want something to perk them up in the winter, your customers will want the same and offering them rewards for simple surveys will not only help you to focus your company during a period when you will have the time to do so, but such survey incentives will also no doubt ensure that your customer base will choose to stay loyal to you.