Ultimate guides

Customer satisfaction, what you need to know

When it comes to customer satisfaction, most businesses find themselves taking a reactive approach. This is because most companies will only start to think about what they can do for their customers after something has gone wrong.

As a business entity, it is important to have an understanding of how the customer's perception of your brand outweighs everything and anything else. There's a whole lot of room to contemplate on how the foundation of a company dwells in its frequenters. This is the reasons that big firms are so focused on investing in the level of contentment that their customers experience.

Sure, there are many ways to go about it. For instance, some might associate customer satisfaction with good pricing, others with seamless service, while still others put more emphasis on the human factor of it all. In reality, customer satisfaction is a lot more complex and ubiquitous than that. Fortunately, today we're covering all the essentials on everything you need to know about customer contentment.


Why is Customer Satisfaction Important?

91% of unhappy customers will never buy from you again. Measuring customer satisfaction will assist you in reducing the number of dissatisfied customers. You won't be able to discover customer complaints if you don't assess their satisfaction, apart from those who are trashing you on social media, of course. But what about those who are silently unhappy and, rather than complaining, will take their business elsewhere?

You won't be able to make significant improvements unless you talk to your customers and identify parts of your customer journey that create problems. You will also be unable to locate your happy, delighted consumers, who may go on to become ambassadors for you. Customer satisfaction surveys enable you to examine customer input and make changes to improve your service, website, product, and other aspects.

How to Measure Customer Satisfaction

So, now that you've realized how important customer satisfaction is to your business, the next step is to figure out how to start measuring it. You won't know what's bothering your customers or what you're doing properly if you don't have any data or opinions to work with. The most straightforward approach to keep track of your performance is to collect customer feedback, specifically CSAT ratings.

Ask your customer to rate their satisfaction with your service or the specific area of your customer satisfaction that you wish to measure on a scale of 1 to 5. Your average rating across all of your scores will tell you where you stand. Then, collect extra information by asking open-ended follow-up questions to investigate why the customers gave that rating. You are now on your way to providing a better experience for your customers, which will lead to higher loyalty and revenues.

How to improve Customer Satisfaction

So you've realized that customer satisfaction is vital, and you've begun to collect feedback from customers. You would assume this is the moment to kick back and celebrate how customer-centric you have become, but the truth is that this is where the actual work begins. Some general principles may be implemented across most businesses to improve client satisfaction, but the best ideas will come from your customers.


Every business is unique, and each industry has its own set of competitors and customer expectations. Analyze what your customers are saying to you and pinpoint trouble spots in your customer journey that leave them unhappy. Once you begin to identify and address these issues, you will observe how they affect your CSAT rating and continuously measure and improve moving forward.

It helps you protect your online image


When you start tracking customers' satisfaction on social media, you receive an overview of positive and negative feedback and take appropriate measures to defend your reputation. For example, you can contact disappointed customers and explain your version of events. Asking for forgiveness is also an essential element of overcoming an unpleasant experience.


You can offer to correct the situation and provide clients with an estimated time frame for rectifying their problem. Finally, consider performing all of this in public. In other words, don't take conversations to a private message. Respond to customer criticisms in open threads instead so that thousands of others can see how much you care about customer happiness.

Create Surveys

Surveys are a helpful technique for getting information like CES, CSAT, and NPS. In a matter of minutes, you can construct a professional-looking survey with QuestionScout. The website allows you to drag and drop different pieces and set up multiple choice answers when necessary. There are also several ready-made templates to choose from, some of which are already based on customer satisfaction measurements.


Use the template of your choice to create the design of your survey. Moreover, don't go crazy with the number of questions you include in your survey. According to a study, people were more likely to abandon a study that took seven to eight minutes to complete. Therefore, regardless of the type of survey, you plan to conduct, aim for a maximum of five minutes of response time and ten questions.

Reduce waiting time

Waiting time is one of the most critical elements affecting customer satisfaction levels in the business world. When people are forced to wait too long for something, it raises a red flag in their minds. For example, if a product or service fails to turn on time, they may believe the seller mishandled their order.


In a world where most people expect instant gratification (or at least gratification with the least amount of waiting), it is critical to consider measures to reduce waiting time. To reduce waiting time, use live chat, self-service order management software, and self-service. As a result, customers will be able to check order detail history and track shipped products without having to wait for assistance.

Conclusion

Customer satisfaction assessment is the way forward for all companies. You can no longer afford to neglect the necessity of offering exceptional experiences because people have so many options available. Identifying significant demands along your customers' journeys, getting feedback to enhance their experiences, and implementing trends can help you boost customer satisfaction – and, as a result, produce more revenue and sales.