Customer satisfaction: Tips, best practices and measures to increase customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is the basic requirement for being able to retain and inspire customers. This is the only way to achieve repeat purchases and recommendations and to make the business model successful. Continuously measure the degree of Customer satisfaction with QuestionPro's Customer Experience Management platform and win with the following Tips dissatisfied customers back!

Measure customer satisfaction: Make customer experiences measurable as part of your Customer Experience Management!

Customer satisfaction indicates the degree to which products or services meet or fail to meet a customer's expectations.

The more expectations are met, the greater customer satisfaction.
The assessment of the products or services is based on the past, i.e. based on user experience gained. Fulfilling customer expectations results in customer loyalty, and exceeding them results in customer enthusiasm. However, it should be noted that customer requirements for products or services have different influences on customer satisfaction. This is how customers differentiate between so-called 

• Basic requirements, i.e. properties that customers take for granted, 
• Performance requirements, i.e. properties that customers expressly request
• Enthusiasm requirements, i.e. characteristics that customers do not necessarily expect and have the potential to inspire enthusiasm.

QuestionPro's Customer Experience Management platform offers you the opportunity to measure and ultimately increase customer satisfaction with innovative survey and analysis tools. Only if you know why your customers are not satisfied can you take appropriate measures to increase customer satisfaction. This means asking your customers as often as possible and identifying how well their products and services meet your customers' basic, performance and excitement needs. Set up customer surveys quickly and easily with QuestionPro and analyse the data in real time! So you always know where things are going wrong and where things are going well!

How can customer satisfaction be measured?

Providing your customers with a great customer experience always pays off in sales. Satisfied customers always come back to you. They become loyal to your company. High customer loyalty ensures consistent income. If you are already meeting the most minimal customer expectations, then you are on the right track. Of course, it's even better to delight your customers. But back to the starting point: measuring customer satisfaction.

The only way to know whether your customers are actually satisfied with your company, products and services is to survey your customers regularly. Customer surveys are key to measuring customer satisfaction. Below we describe seven valuable metrics for measuring customer satisfaction that are very easy to implement. Basically, all you need is a web-based platform or software that allows you to quickly and easily carry out customer surveys and that has already integrated the appropriate question types that you need to measure customer satisfaction, without you having to laboriously put together a questionnaire .

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

In one of our previous blog articles we explained the principle of the Net Promoter Score in more detail.

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) helps to measure customer loyalty and therefore indirectly to measure customer satisfaction by asking your customers about their willingness to recommend your brand to friends and acquaintances. “If you consider your overall experience with our company, how likely are you to recommend our products and services to your family and colleagues? The question is answered on a scale of 1-10, where 10 means that the likelihood of a recommendation is very high, and 1 means that it is rather unlikely. Based on the answer, your customers are classified into different types:

critic:
Customers who have rated you between 0-6 fall into this category and have very low to no customer satisfaction. They are not loyal and will likely spread negative word of mouth about your brand. Additionally, they will most likely switch to competition. You have definitely lost sales if you don't act!

advocate:
These customers have rated you 9 or 10 points and are your most loyal customers and have above-average customer satisfaction. They actively promote your brand to their friends and family. You are most likely assured of sales from your advocates, they will be happy to buy from you again and again, and most importantly, again and again.

passive:
Customers who have rated you between 7 and 8 fall into this category. They won't readily recommend your brand, but they won't speak badly about it either. Maybe these customers will buy from you again, or maybe they will buy from the competition.

» You can find detailed information about the Net Promoter Score here

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

With the Customer Satisfaction Score, similar to the Net Promoter Score, you can easily measure customer satisfaction using a single question. The question here is: Overall, how satisfied are you with our products/services? This question is usually asked following a customer interaction, such as a support request or other interaction between customers and your company. However, initial surveys are also possible by email or when customers log in to the customer area on your website. The customer satisfaction score question usually has five levels, from very satisfied to very dissatisfied.

» You can find more information about the Customer Satisfaction Score here

Measuring customer satisfaction with the Customer Satisfaction Score: Example of an evaluation. 

Customer Effort Score (CES)

You can also measure customer satisfaction with the Customer Effort Score. This score primarily wants to know how much effort your customers have to put in to achieve a desired goal when interacting with your company. But this also shows whether your customers are satisfied or not.

Because if customers have to put in a lot of effort to get to a desired goal, then there is a high probability that they will be dissatisfied! Example: A customer is looking for specific information on your website. How much time does he invest in this? How long does a customer wait on hold on your telephone support hotline?

» Here you will find detailed information about the Customer Effort Score

Customer Health Score (CHS)

The Customer Health Score tells you whether your customers will stay with you over time or move on to your competition. Unlike other customer satisfaction metrics, this score identifies behavioral patterns over a specific period of time. It is determined by aspects such as:

• Product lifespan
• Product type (license level – free or paid)
• Number of interactions with your company
• Money spent on your products
• Your willingness to respond to your messages
• etc ...

These are just a few key parameters and they can vary depending on the company and industry. The key is to use these factors to meaningfully classify your customers into loyal customers and customers who will churn over time, such as when a better opportunity to purchase similar products or services arises. Determining the Customer Health Score is actually a little more complex than the other metrics used to measure customer satisfaction. If you are interested in a consultation on this, please feel free to contact us using the contact form.

Customer Service Satisfaction (CSS)

Customer Service Satisfaction measures customer satisfaction with your service. You can measure the level of customer service satisfaction by collecting feedback from your customers during every service-related interaction with your company. You can do this through forms, pop-ups, live chat, online surveys or email surveys. All you need to do is basically ask the same question: “Were you satisfied with our service?” If you always ask your customers the same standardized question, you can observe trends and patterns over time. This will help you identify areas for improvement and prioritize improvements, thereby increasing overall customer satisfaction.

Customer Churn Rate / Customer Churn Rate (CCR)

The customer churn rate or customer churn rate (CCR) indicates what percentage of customers your company has lost over a certain period of time.

It's extremely important to retain your existing customers because it can cost up to seven times more to acquire new customers. Monitoring your customer churn rate will help you uncover trends that could be negatively impacting your business and take effective steps to curb churn. Calculating churn rate is easy: you start by defining your calculation period, e.g. B. a year. Subtract the number of customers you have at the end of the year from the number at the beginning of the year. Divide this result by the number of customers at the beginning of the year to get the CCR. However, you can choose the cycles as you wish. If you regularly calculate customer churn rates, you can see trends on a timeline. You will also realize how important customer satisfaction is for your business, because as customer churn increases, you will inevitably notice that customer satisfaction is decreasing.

Customer reviews on rating portals reflect customer satisfaction

It is incredibly important to pay attention to any feedback or review you receive via portals, websites or social media channels. The importance of reviews cannot be overstated. They are a valuable indicator of customer satisfaction! According to a recent study, more than 90% of shoppers value product reviews over product descriptions. Review portals such as Google Reviews are very popular with customers and this is where they get information about products and companies.

Make sure you have positive reviews and recommendations online on websites or portals that your potential customers may visit. If you have positive comments or feedback about your products or services, you can ask them to write a review. If they are happy and satisfied, they will happily recommend your company to their acquaintances and friends. QuestionPro supports you in keeping an eye on customer reviews on rating portals, reacting immediately to negative feedback and thus restoring customer satisfaction.

» Here you will find detailed information about rating portals

The large customer survey guide from QuestionPro with example questionnaires

We have summarized everything you need to know about customer surveys in a separate blog article. Includes examples and an importable customer satisfaction survey template.

» Click here for the blog article Conducting a customer survey.

Important and valuable indicators for measuring customer satisfaction

Achieving a high level of customer satisfaction must be a priority for every company that wants to operate successfully on the market in the long term. What are the most important indicators here?

Number of advocates

Customers who rate customer experiences as “very satisfied” or “extremely satisfied” in your customer surveys or NPS surveys are an excellent indicator of whether your company is actually doing well. If your customers rate you excellent, they are satisfied with your customer support teams, your sales, your service, your company's culture, products and services, and your business is most likely doing well. Satisfied customers are loyal customers, which is crucial because acquiring new customers is more expensive than retaining existing ones.

Loyal customers are great brand advocates and a significant source of revenue because they buy from you again and again. But knowing that you have satisfied customers is far from enough. Knowing the reasons for high customer satisfaction is key. Even if something definitely works well, you need to know what and why it works in order to either repeat it at other customer touchpoints, intensify it and also observe whether the trend develops in a different direction at some point.

NPS benchmarks

NPS benchmarks are crucial to knowing where you stand in relation to your competitors when it comes to customer satisfaction. No matter how good your result is, there is always room for improvement. Work on it and make sure your competition doesn't outperform you. If your competitors have a better result than you, study them and their methods to understand what you can do better yourself. You can find a very good overview of NPS benchmarks in this blog article on hubspot.de

Perception of your brand

You may advertise your products and services in a certain way that you or your advertising agency believe will resonate with your customers and prospects, but do your customers actually agree with it? There are countless examples of how advertising can go wrong and even go completely wrong. Does your brand’s message align with what your customers think? Find out easily by asking your customers about it. One option is to conduct customer surveys that examine your engagement on social media to understand how customers actually perceive your company and your products or services. When your communication matches your customers' perceptions, your brand will be perceived positively. If not, your company will quickly be dropped and there is a risk of customer churn.

Overall ratings in rating portals

An equally important indicator of customer satisfaction are ratings and reviews in review portals such as Yelp, Google My Business or Trip Advisor et al. If the reviews on the relevant review portals are excellent due to high customer satisfaction, this also has the nice side effect that other customers and interested parties see these positive reviews. It is therefore very important for companies to always keep an eye on the level of customer satisfaction. And if the reviews within a review portal are bad, then you should react immediately to negative comments, ratings and reviews so that visitors to review portals see that you actually care if something didn't go so well. As a web app, QuestionPro supports you in managing your company reputation.

The most important reasons for measuring and focusing on customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is crucial to retaining your customers and attracting new customers. Dissatisfied customers are a retention risk, and losing them hurts your brand. Let’s take a look at why customer satisfaction (CSAT) is so important to the success of brands.

Returning customers bring recurring revenue

Satisfied customers are likely to buy from you again. An easy way to find out is through customer satisfaction surveys. Ask your customers to rate their satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10 and see who would like to buy from you in the future. Customers who rate you 7 or more are satisfied and will most likely buy from you again. A value of 6 or below is already worrying; these customers are dissatisfied with you and pose a high risk of churn. Customers with a rating of 9 or 10 are your biggest advocates and most loyal customers. Use customer surveys to find out how many customers will buy from you in the future.

High customer satisfaction increases your online reputation

If the general level of customer satisfaction in your company is high, then there is a high probability that your customers will write positive reviews on review portals such as Google My Business. Positive reviews in review portals inevitably increase your online reputation, as many customers now find out how other customers rate companies, brands, products and services before making a purchase. Get an idea of ​​how customers rate your company by using QuestionPro's web app for reputation management, which gives you central and direct access to reviews and ratings from review portals.

Satisfied customers help you create innovations

Customers with a high level of customer satisfaction and an increased identification with your brands and services support you in creating innovations! Many companies now use a corresponding community for innovation management and invite their customers to actively participate in generating ideas and developing innovations. Customers therefore have the sublime feeling of being able to participate in product development, which in turn promotes customer education and the Increases customer satisfaction.

Differentiation feature from the competition

Customer satisfaction is the key to the success or failure of a brand. In this competitive time with a huge number of brands, products and services, customer satisfaction must be at the core of your customer strategy. No amount of marketing campaigns and promotions will help you if your customers aren't actually satisfied. Brands that have low customer satisfaction are likely to disappear from the market in the future. Brands that have advocates are likely to outperform the competition. High customer satisfaction is therefore an enormous competitive advantage. You will have brand advocates if you have happy customers.

Reduce customer churn

Contrary to popular belief, high price is not the main reason for customer churn. Yes, you guessed it right; it's customer service. We know some brands that have a large customer base despite high prices. You can use customer satisfaction scores and the results of your CSAT surveys to improve your customer service processes. Poor quality customer service harms you and costs you customers in the long run. Obtain ongoing customer feedback to track your progress in increasing customer satisfaction.

Reduce negative word of mouth

According to a McKinsey study, a dissatisfied customer tells between 9 and 15 people about their negative customer experiences. Considering how many unhappy customers you may have, that's a lot of negative word of mouth hurting your reputation. This directly impacts your company's sales and your brand's reputation. Repeat business depends on customer satisfaction, and dissatisfied customers are detrimental to your business. There will always be customer churn, but you don't want to lose customers due to bad word of mouth. Regular customer satisfaction surveys help you measure customer satisfaction and identify factors that could be causing your customers to leave.

Retaining customers is cost effective

The cost of acquiring new customers is 6-7 times higher than the cost of retaining your existing customers. This shows how important customer satisfaction is. Instead of spending large sums on acquiring new customers, spend a fraction of that on improving your existing processes and systems to solidify customer loyalty and increase customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and customer loyalty

When customer satisfaction is high, identification with your company's products and brands inevitably increases. And a high level of identification with a brand binds customers to your company. These loyal customers bring you repeat purchases and form a large part of your sales. Losing customers has a major impact on your company's sales and churn numbers. According to a report from Adobe, loyal customers spend 67% more than new customers through reorders, upsells, etc. Add to that the positive word of mouth from your loyal customers to friends and family, and it all adds up. Satisfied existing customers feel like they can promote the brand to the people they love without disappointing them because of the great experiences they've had.

 Consistent sales

Brands that actively focus on customer satisfaction have healthy revenues. You don't lose existing customers and have a steady stream of revenue from repeat business. Customer satisfaction and increased sales are directly related. Satisfied customers remain loyal to your brand, continue to buy it and give recommendations to their colleagues, friends and family. Conduct online customer surveys to determine which areas are negatively impacting customer satisfaction and need improvement. This will help increase customer satisfaction, reduce customer churn and thus keep sales from existing customers stable.

Increasing brand reputation and popularity

Customer satisfaction affects the reputation and popularity of the brand. Review customer feedback and find out which areas could be improved to increase the satisfaction of your valuable and important customers. Is it accounting or customer service? Don’t be afraid to ask your customers; Honest feedback helps to recognize customer expectations and act accordingly. Famous brands have their own teams and initiatives to improve customer satisfaction, which helps them achieve high sales.

That's why you should regularly conduct and measure customer satisfaction surveys

There are several benefits of measuring customer satisfaction. Let us look at some of the most important of them below.

1. Determine the number of loyal customers

Satisfied customers remain loyal and increase sales. They keep coming back when they like a product or service and are satisfied with the performance and customer service offered. You can use these metrics to determine your loyal and satisfied customers. You can reach out to dissatisfied customers to find out their reasons and take action to make them happy.

2. Find advocates and stimulate their willingness to recommend others

With Net Promoter Score you can find out who your advocates, detractors and passive customers are. Your promoters can encourage you to recommend your brand and its positive qualities to friends and acquaintances or to publish their positive experiences in review portals. Satisfied customers are your company's best advocates. For passive customers, you can take steps to encourage them to become advocates. This could be through discounts, offers, early product previews, various benefits, etc. It would be helpful if you delved more into the critics by finding out the main reasons for their dissatisfaction and the not so positive experiences. This will help improve overall customer satisfaction.

3. Increase your brand reputation

Customers with great experiences may talk about their experiences with their friends and family, but those with bad experiences will definitely talk about it. This not only damages your brand reputation, but also your bottom line. Conducting customer satisfaction surveys can help you identify and address some of these concerns. With so many social media channels available, customers can easily post information about their less-than-good experiences or leave bad reviews. You can avoid this by acting in a timely manner and taking the necessary measures to improve their experience and satisfaction.

4. Improve usability and customer experiences

For example, by conducting Customer Effort Score (CES) surveys, you can collect quantitative and qualitative data and use those survey results to ensure that you are making it easier for your customers to interact with your products or company in future rollouts Communicate functions or new offers in this way.

You can only optimize what you measure: increase customer satisfaction and minimize customer dissatisfaction

As you know, good news is difficult to disseminate - unlike the bad one! So if we encourage satisfied customers to talk, then we have to deal with the dissatisfied all the more. The ideal case, of course, would be that we do not have any dissatisfied customers. But where people meet each other, mistakes are made, misunderstandings arise and there are different expectations. So there will always be, the critics, the dissatisfied. The ones who are there for a real reason, and also the eternally nagging ones. Hopefully, there should not be too many!

So what can be done to placate dissatisfied and critical customers and get them back on track with enthusiasm? Of course, the following text, in its brevity, can only provide suggestions with regard to your Customer Experience Management. Act at the so-called touchpoints, i.e. the interfaces between customers and the company, and fill exactly these touchpoints with positive customer experiences to increase customer satisfaction. But what if the child has already fallen into the well? Here you will find a few tips and suggestions.

In the interest of customer satisfaction: act quickly and solution-oriented!

From my own experience and from the experience of many of my customers and business friends, I would like to claim that 95% of all dissatisfied customers will remain loyal to your company if problems can be solved quickly and satisfactorily. So you should have appropriate response management in place. If the customer contacts you, don't put them off, find answers and solutions ad hoc. Even unconventional ones. And before the customer can contact you: contact your customer. Regular satisfaction surveys uncover one or two hidden frustrations in advance. Find out how your customers are feeling at every opportunity! This is active Customer Experience Management and increases customer satisfaction quickly and sustainably.

Avoid relay races for your customers and give your employees decision-making power!

Nothing is more annoying and humiliating for a customer if he can speak to one of your employees, for example via a hotline or at the information desk, but this employee cannot make a decision and has to ask a superior first, but not the customer himself may forward. For heaven's sake, please never give your customers the feeling that they are talking to someone who has no decision-making authority and is essentially nothing more than a human answering machine. This also causes frustration among your employees themselves! Also avoid forwarding too frequently and referring to other departments, locations or responsibilities. This also causes frustration and reduces customer satisfaction.

Don't act in a petty way, and certainly not in a small-minded way!

The costs of managing a complaint or complaint process are often higher than the value of the item itself. Determine the average costs that a complaint process entails and simply wave through any complaint that is below this amount! Many companies have been successfully practicing this method for a long time. This method is not only a benefit for your customers because it gives them quick relief. It also makes economic sense. Sometimes you can increase customer satisfaction with just common sense!

Listen and take your customer seriously. Always and without exception everyone!

Yes, they exist, the complainers and professional critics. And they can cost us a lot of time, money and get on our last nerve. But even these very special customers often have very valuable suggestions and suggestions for improvement to fundamentally increase customer satisfaction. Listen as part of your Customer Experience Management, because not only good experiences are valuable experiences. And try to make these people happy too. Because they are loud and are not afraid to spend half the day spreading negative or seemingly negative experiences. The reader who stumbles across such a negative report on one of the many social networks does not know that the author is a constant drummer. We don't have to cower before them, but we have to learn to deal with them.

Empathy – empathize with the customer and create positive feelings!

American writer and civil rights activist Maya Angelou said: “I have learned that people forget what they said. But they will never forget what they felt.” Put yourself in the shoes of your dissatisfied customers who have also worked hard for every dollar they invest in the products and services. Meet your customers where they are with all their anger and frustration and do everything you can to ensure that this negative feeling quickly turns into customer satisfaction. This sense of contrast has a lasting effect!

Expectations play an important role in customer satisfaction!

Basically it's a simple formula: simply outperforming your customers' expectations with your service, your products, your complaint management, your Customer Experience Management, your communication skills, your speed and friendliness. But that also means in reverse: do not create exaggerated expectations due to exaggerated advertising messages! Anyone who has ever tried in vain to reach someone on a hotline for 2 days, even though 24 / 7 support has been touted, surely knows what that means. And then it is understandable, if the customer just lets his dissatisfaction run wild. We want to win it back loyalty in any case, because customer satisfaction is our ultimate goal!

Reduce waiting times

Higher waiting times significantly reduce the value of customer satisfaction. You cannot give your customers excuses such as: E.g., high call volume, understaffing, holiday season, etc. You need to anticipate such situations and plan actions accordingly. 

Listen to your customers

Listen to your customers, both satisfied and dissatisfied. Find out what works for you and what gets in the way of an excellent customer experience. Conduct regular customer satisfaction surveys (CSAT) with the CX management platform and analyse which touchpoints need improvement and how you can actually improve them.

Improve your NPS

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer loyalty and the willingness of your customers to recommend your products and services to their relatives and colleagues. Conduct NPS surveys to measure your Net Promoter Score. Often, higher customer satisfaction leads to higher NPS. A good NPS score is important for understanding where you stand compared to your competitors. See what your competitors are doing differently or better than you and improve your own NPS. This will help increase your customer satisfaction.

Build a customer community

Setting up communities is a great way to direct customer service, advertising and marketing activities, and address customer concerns. Using a community manager improves your social media presence and responsiveness. The community manager can monitor all conversations and ensure that conversations are moving in the right direction. He can keep an eye on product or service issues and escalate them to the team for timely resolution. Communities are a great way to gather new product ideas, feedback on existing and upcoming products, and improve customer satisfaction.

Read customer reviews

In addition to the leading social media channels, there are many websites and portals where customers can leave their reviews, so-called review portals. Monitor or log into these portals to see what your customers are saying about your products and services. Good or bad, try to understand the reasons behind these reviews. If they are good, see if you can repeat them elsewhere and improve the CSAT. If they are negative, what are the reasons and what measures can be taken to improve the customer experience? Once you start analyzing it, you can use this data to significantly increase customer satisfaction.

» Reputation management tips and best practices

Key reasons and benefits of measuring customer satisfaction

Increased customer satisfaction is directly reflected in more sales. People tend to continue to enjoy good experiences. And they tell friends and acquaintances about it! So if your customers have had a great customer experience with your products, services, support or complaint management, they are likely to continue to do so. Customers spend more as trust increases. They gradually become loyal customers who spend 67% more than the new customers. Measuring customer satisfaction and striving to continually improve it offers tangible benefits. Some of the reasons why you should always measure customer satisfaction data:

• Spot trends: Surveying your customers about customer satisfaction helps you understand their choices and preferences and how patterns emerge from those choices. Use different question types to get relevant information and avoid survey fatigue.
• Gain valuable feedback: By interacting directly with your customers, you receive honest feedback. Communicating with them builds trust because they see that their feedback is valued.
• Increase customer retention: Working on the improvement areas can help close the gaps and improve customer retention.
• Reduce acquisition costs: Acquiring new customers costs more money than retaining existing ones.
• Understand the customer perspective: It is important to know your customers and understand their perspective. Without knowing why they like a particular product or service, knowing their needs and requirements, you cannot deliver an excellent customer experience.
• Track feedback changes: If you have a product or service that has gone through multiple changes or iterations, customer satisfaction questions can help track changes in feedback over time. They help you with actionable insights that have the potential to make a difference.
• Nurture Promoters: No matter how much you spend on advertising, it will never match word-of-mouth marketing. As you act on the suggestions, customers will take note and develop a deeper appreciation and loyalty for your brand.
• Maintain customer loyalty: Surveys give the impression that you care about your customers' opinions and want to provide them with the best service. If you act on their feedback, they may come back to your brand.
• Gain a competitive advantage: Keeping your customers happy can help your business stay competitive in the market. Failure to achieve this should be a red flag for the survival of your business.

1:1 live online presentation:
Customer satisfaction: We show you how to measure and increase your customer satisfaction

Our CX experts will be happy to provide you with a consultation on the topic of personnel planning at an appointment of your choice. Arrange an individual appointment.

KEYWORDS OF THIS BLOG POST

Customer satisfaction | Measure customer satisfaction | CX | importance | steps