What is customer satisfaction research?
How satisfied are your customers with your business? Customer satisfaction is an important component for any business. Customer satisfaction is determined by a number of aspects. These aspects differ from company to company. Simply stated, a customer satisfaction survey examines how satisfied your customers are. This is often done by having customers give a score on different aspects and by asking open-ended questions. By sending your customers a short questionnaire (e.g. via e-mail), these scores are collected.
At AlphaRainbow, we also apply this within our customer satisfaction surveys. In addition, we use the NPS method. NPS stands for Net Promoter Score. This method uses a score to indicate how satisfied (and loyal) your customers are. The higher the NPS score, the more satisfied your customers are. Want to know more about the Net Promoter Score? Then read on here.
When is someone satisfied?
Usually, you can say that when the customer’s expectations are exceeded, he or she is satisfied. Do you want to increase your customer’s satisfaction? Then this means that you will have to steer this customer’s expectations and experiences. Make sure you create realistic expectations that you can meet or even exceed.
Why would you want satisfied customers?
Satisfied customers come back more often, spend more and create positive word-of-mouth advertising. The last, in turn, ensures that new customers come to you faster. In addition, satisfied customers are less sensitive to price increases and cheaper to retain. Attracting a new customer is as much as six to seven times more expensive than retaining an existing customer.
How do expectations occur?
There are a number of ways to manage expectations:
- Communication/marketing
What promises do you make towards your customers? For example, “fast delivery”, “available until 18:30” or “ordered before 23:59, delivered tomorrow”. All promises and statements create expectations. Make sure you can live up to them to avoid disappointment and provide a good experience.
- Previous experiences
If a customer has done business with your company before, this customer will expect at least the same next time. Therefore, if you greatly exceed expectations the first time, you will have to deliver the same the next time.
- Customer needs
What is your client looking for? Does he want guidance from A to Z or does he prefer a do-it-yourself package? Different needs create different expectations. Understand what your customer’s needs are, what expectations they have and how you will meet them.
How do experiences occur?
There are a number of ways to manage experiences:
- The quality of the product/service
Does the product work as it should? What material is the product made of? What is the price?
- How the product came to you
Was the delivery time acceptable? Was the product delivered at the agreed time? What does the packaging look like?
- The supportive people
The experience with the product can be influenced by personal contact. Are you friendly towards the customer? Do you listen well? Do you communicate proactively?
Getting started with the results
A customer satisfaction survey is all about understanding current satisfaction levels and initiating concrete improvements. Important questions to ask yourself are: Am I making progress? What do I need to improve? Which improvement will have the most impact? What activities should I stop doing and what activities, above all, should I continue doing? By answering these questions, you will create focus within the company and increase customer satisfaction.
Want to know more about our customer satisfaction survey? Then click below:
Marlin Paas
Junior Project Manager