What Visitors Want at Topretirements

December 13, 2009. Thanks to everyone who took the time from their busy day to fill out the Topretirements member satisfaction survey last week. We received hundreds of comments and suggestions from our visitors. What we learned is that we serve a very diverse group of people with an interesting range of opinions and desires. Some of the comments were contradictory (particularly about regions to focus on), a few suggestions are easy to fix while others are more difficult, but all of the comments were thought provoking. We enjoyed reading them. Thanks, this input will help us build a better Topretirements.

Overview. First, a brief overview of what the survey found out about you and about Topretirements in general:
– 93% are satisfied or better with the site
– 44% are “very likely” to recommend Topretirements to a friend
– Our most highly rated features are the site’s organization, the city reviews, and the state retirement guides
– 80% come to Topretirements because they are looking for a future best place to retire
– Although both of our enewsletters were rated highly, visitors appear slightly happier with the Wednesday newsletter (City reviews) than Friday’s (Active adult communities)
– 43% visit the site daily or several times a week
– Our visitors are an affluent group – 80% of those who specified their income level have household income of $50k or more.

To Work on: Here are some of the items our visitors brought up that we intend to work on or consider in the coming weeks and months:
– More and richer information about the weather, costs, HOA fees, cultural opportunities, intangibles, political, and educational aspects of the communities
– Be able to see the community on the map (this change will actually be made in the next few days)
– Provide less expensive community options to choose from
– More Retirement Ranger flexibility
– Better search capability
– HOA and other fees for living in a community should be provided for the total picture
– More property rentals
– More outsider opinions (and also fewer insider opinions!)
– Get more reader involvement (Comment: “It would help if more people out there would participate in forum discussions or ratings of the various aspects of towns/cities”.)
– Be more critical in our reviews of communities
– Add more reviews of 55+ communities
– Think about the frequency of the newsletter. Should we only send the Friday newsletter to the people who specifically request it (some people object to getting 2 emails a week)?
– And many, many more comments too numerous to list.

And finally, our absolute favorite comments!
– “Yes, expand this site to National TV… Seem like retirement items you present would make for an interesting TV show. It would be at least as good as all the real estate programs they have now.”
– “How can one criticize a website that constantly asks for input from its users?”

Winners. We chose 3 winners from the respondents who will receive a free copy of “101 Best Outdoor Towns”. Congratulations, your books are in the mail.

What do you think? Do you have more opinions about what works and doesn’t work at Topretirements? Use the Comments section below to fill us in.