The Value of Measuring Customer
Satisfaction
Measuring customer satisfaction is vital to understanding the wellbeing of your customer relationships. With the help of surveys and tools like the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), Customer Engagement Score (CES) and the Net Promoter Score (NPS), you can assess key indicators of customer satisfaction: overall satisfaction, loyalty, attribute satisfaction, and intent to repurchase.
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What we will cover:
- Why should businesses measure customer satisfaction?
- How does a business measure customer satisfaction?
- How to set customer satisfaction measurement goals
- How do you make the most of customer satisfaction feedback?
- How to use CSAT, CES or NPS to measure customer satisfaction
- When should you measure customer satisfaction?
- What are the next steps after measuring customer satisfaction?
- How can the latest customer satisfaction software help you?
- How to measure customer satisfaction?: Key facts & FAQs
Why should businesses measure customer satisfaction?
Data gathered from customer satisfaction measurement is often used to highlight problem areas in a business, analyse and evaluate customer relationships, or source ideas for new developments. The information collected can commonly be used to:
- Quickly highlight problem areas in your business
- Analyse and evaluate customer relationships
- Source ideas for new developments
Using intelligent software,data is analysed and used as a vital resource for the growth and success of a business. The latest software refines this information and quickly creates detailed customer profiles and procedural analysis.
How does a business measure customer satisfaction?
It is easy to ask a customer if they were happy with their purchase and receive a quick evaluation of yes or no. However, to get a holistic understanding of customer satisfaction, you must take a closer look at 4 key factors mentioned above:
- Overall Satisfaction (Attitudinal):
The strongest predictor of a high level of customer satisfaction is the perception of quality and the extent to which the customer feels fulfilled. A satisfied customer will say they feel they have made a good choice and are happy that they purchased from you. - Loyalty (Affective):
As the best indicator of brand referral, high measures of loyalty also reflect great satisfaction and the likelihood of repeat use. This provides a thorough overview of customer attitude towards the brand and can most easily be measured by a Net Promoter Score survey. - Attribute Satisfaction (Cognitive):
Liking or disliking a product can be broken down into the specific attributes or qualities that affect customer perception. By taking a closer look at these, businesses can learn why customers cognitively judge their products in a specific way and, if they show low customer satisfaction, what may have contributed to this. - Intent to Repurchase (Behavioural):
Brand loyalty can be assessed by simply asking the consumer whether it would be a good choice to repurchase an item. Not only does this indicate customer satisfaction, but this can also highlight a consumer’s probability of recommending the brand to fellow consumers.
By considering the ways in which customer satisfaction is measured, businesses can refine their feedback parameters and assess consumer interactions more accurately.
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How to set customer satisfaction measurement goals
Assessing which method is the most suitable means looking at the specific aim behind the research. Customer research is not free, and careful consideration should be given to how the information will be used to benefit the business.
Goals or agendas behind measuring customer satisfaction can vary but most often include:
- Isolating areas for improvement
- Reviewing performance of specific functions
- Analysing performance of trials and A/B tests
- Segmenting UX phases and identifying recurring issues
- Generating topics for proactive support strategies
How do you make the most of customer satisfaction feedback?
Positive feedback is a great way of confirming your business practices are on the right track.
However, if your goal is to look at how you can grow your business, then positive feedback is also valuable for another reason: particular customer service scoring systems like the NPS are ideal for breaking down customer bases and presenting them on a spectrum of satisfaction.
By targeting the most satisfied customers with discounts and loyalty benefits, you can often motivate customers from being passively satisfied with your services to proactively sharing their strong opinions with others.
Negative feedback is not only to be expected, but should also be considered a beneficial force for change.If your goal in creating a survey or score is to identify areas for improvement, the analysis of negative feedback is a key resource.
How to use CSAT, CES or NPS to measure customer satisfaction
After taking a look at your goals and what you would like to assess with your customer satisfaction measurement, it often becomes clear which methodology is right for you.
The three main options are
- Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSAT)
- Customer Engagement Score (CES)
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Whilst CSAT is a popular and direct way to assess how a customer feels about specific experiences with your company, there are gaps. After a certain point, customer satisfaction does not give the most holistic overview, so other methods of measurement become necessary to evaluate the health and loyalty of your customer base.
Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSAT)
As the most commonly used and straightforward method of measuring customer satisfaction, the CSAT survey asks customers to rate their satisfaction directly on a scale.
Customers tend to be familiar with this format, understand it easily and can complete it quickly, all of which improves participation rates.
The benefit of this type of survey is that is can be used to provide direct feedback on an ongoing process, for example a support product or interaction.
Customer Engagement Score (CES)
While the format is similar to a CSAT survey, customer engagement surveys instead rate how much ease the customer feels while interacting with your business.
Rather than looking at how happy a customer was in the past, this survey looks at whether your processes are efficient and consistent with maintaining loyalty.
A customer who feels that dealing with your company requires effort will grow to resent your company or simply give up on interacting with you. This is why the CES is the best measure of customer loyalty.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Meanwhile, the Net Promoter Score measures the extent to which customers would proactively refer the company to someone else.
The results can be segmented to show those that would dissuade someone from using your services and those who feel so positively about your business that they would recommend your services.
By using an aggregate score, businesses are able to look at the NPS as a reflection of customer loyalty and retention.
When should you measure customer satisfaction?
The best time to send a triggered survey is after a specific phase in the customer experience. This could be a customer completing an onboarding or free trial period – or shortly before a subscription renewal.
The general rule is: the closer to the event or service, the more accurate the feedback for your CSAT survey will be. For example, if your goal is to measure the success of a customer service tool like a chatbot, the most obvious time to trigger a survey is directly after the interaction.
In contrast, if a business is looking to measure something more long-term like loyalty, regularly triggering surveys every 6 months to assess NPS scores is a great way to track customer feelings toward a brand in general.
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What are the next steps after measuring customer satisfaction?
Whether you use software or external services to break down your results, the most important factor is how you use that data.
A few examples:
- If your results highlight issues with a particular service, it would make sense to look at these processes closely and reflect on where you can make changes.
- If a long term tracking of NPS shows a decline over a specific period, a business may look at particular updates or changes that were made during this time that may have affected customer loyalty.
Whatever you choose to do with your results, it is important that you take action in some way. Customer expectations are constantly changing and using data to ensure your next steps are deliberate and informed is a great way to meet this demand.
How can the latest customer satisfaction software help you?
More intuitive and autonomous than ever before, intelligent software facilitates the most efficient and thorough use of customer feedback. Additionally, by transforming how automated software can interact with customers, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has optimised customer analysis tools in a number of ways, including:
- The collection and review of user data by intelligent software allows for automatic segmentation. This ensures an autonomous, faster and more accurate representation of customer demographics.
- With tools like recommended responses, customer inquiries can be classified according to case context and history. Automated responses to regular requests then free up time for agents to offer assistance in more specialised cases.
Today’s customers are best analysed with today’s technology. By measuring customer satisfaction and recognising the need for more personalisation and innovation, AI is supporting businesses by helping them adapt and cater to modern customers with ease.
That’s a lot of info!
Here’s what you should take away from this article:
- Why should businesses measure customer satisfaction? Measuring customer satisfaction helps businesses identify problems, nurture customer relationships and find potential brand advocates.
- How does a business measure customer satisfaction? The key factors for measuring customer satisfaction are:
- Overall satisfaction
- Loyalty
- Attribute satisfaction
- Intent to repurchase
- Which tools help measure customer satisfaction? Some tools that measure customer satisfaction include the Customer Satisfaction Score, Customer Engagement Score and the Net Promoter Score.
- How do businesses set customer satisfaction measurement goals? When setting customer satisfaction measurement goals, consider:
- Isolating weaknesses
- Reviewing functionality
- Analysing trials
- Generating strategies
- How can businesses make the most out of customer satisfaction feedback?Businesses can target their most satisfied customers with loyalty benefits, while using negative feedback as an impetus for beneficial change.
- How do businesses use CSAT, CES or NPS to measure customer satisfaction? CSAT measures customer satisfaction, while CES assesses service efficiency and NPS evaluates brand reputation.
- When should businesses measure customer satisfaction? The best time to measure customer satisfaction is after a specific phase in the customer experience, such as onboarding.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is customer satisfaction and why is it important?
Customer satisfaction is simply a measurement of how happy customers are with a company’s service or products. Measuring customer satisfaction is important for businesses as it enables them to:
- Quickly highlight problem areas in their business
- Analyse and evaluate customer relationships
- Build loyalty
- Source ideas for new developments
How do you measure customer satisfaction?
How do you achieve customer satisfaction?
Some ways to achieve customer satisfaction goals include:
- Focus on personalised communication
- Proactively solicit feedback and act on it
- Provide multichannel support
- Cut response times
- Get to know the customers
- Keep the customer service team happy and engaged
- Learn from compliments and keep track of what’s working
