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We cannot stress customer satisfaction’s enough. A company’s ability to address the needs of its customers determines its survival. Customer satisfaction is one yardstick on which companies are measured, and it’s calculated using metrics including field audits, net promoter scores, consumer feedback surveys, and mystery shopping. But what is customer satisfaction?
Customer satisfaction is defined as a sense of contentment with a customer’s product or service they purchased from you. The measure of customer satisfaction varies depending on the company’s measuring. Still, common factors include speed, accuracy, ease of use, and whether the product fits its needs.
There are ways to measure customer satisfaction, but they are all very similar. They typically involve some survey that customers fill out either on paper or online after purchasing your product or service. Some companies use feedback forms at their locations, while others send surveys via email. Some companies even have new customers call them first to offer immediate feedback on how satisfied they were with their service and product. Reuters discusses the new trend in customer satisfaction measurement, which uses the latest technologies like webcams to give an accurate reading of what is making your customers happy–or not so happy.
As an organization grows, its focus on customer satisfaction also grows. After all, different people will be buying other products for various organizations, so your focus will change as you note what is and isn’t working with each new customer base. For example, suppose one group of customers needs a product delivered overnight to meet a deadline, and another doesn’t care how quickly their product gets there. In that case, speed becomes less important than accuracy. Your company may have to hire more employees or buy different equipment depending on these various demands. Consequently, the type of metrics you collect for each customer base may look very different from those contained in another sector of your organization.
Customers are the driving force behind businesses; they makeup 70% or more of most companies’ sales revenue and represent significant earning potential if done right. It is why customer satisfaction should be the number one priority of every company. Companies that use a systematic approach to collecting and analyzing metrics related to customer satisfaction have an advantage over companies that do not measure these metrics. The more you know about what your customers think of your product or service, the better prepared you are to correct anything that might need improvement. You can then alter your focus on what makes each customer group happy, making each one even more comfortable in the future.
It takes several months to get a complete picture of its strengths and needs to improve based on customer feedback from various surveys. By measuring several data points, such as whether your customers are satisfied with their interactions, your product or service itself, and the company’s customer service, you can get a clear vision of how your business stacks up against competitors.
Once you focus your efforts on customer satisfaction, it’s time to make improvements. These could come from redesigned products offering more features or simpler interfaces. They may involve better training for employees to provide faster delivery times or be more responsive to customer questions. Customer feedback allows organizations to determine what their customers want to see improved; when these needs are met, overall satisfaction rises, and revenue improves.
Tags: Customer Feedback, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Satisfaction Measurement