How to Successfully Measure Customer Satisfaction Using Sophisticated Yet Uncomplicated Tech8/13/2019 Niraj Ranjan Rout is the co-founder and CEO of Hiver, a company that helps teams manage email efficiently. As an entrepreneur, Niraj is active in writing code, solving hard tech problems, hiring and motivating people to build great products which can solve real user problems.
Determining customer satisfaction is a crucial function for companies. Retaining customers can increase profitability: according to research done by Bain & Company, increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by more than 25%. But, are businesses doing enough to encourage customer feedback? The average company only hears from 4% of its dissatisfied customers, which means most companies aren’t hearing from the large majority who aren’t complaining. Measuring customer satisfaction and collecting feedback is important, and luckily, it’s not very difficult. There is a wide range of tools available to measure your company’s customer satisfaction including emails, reviews, surveys and more. However, these tools should be used in specific ways. For example, sending a survey to a disgruntled customer will only make things worse, and a phone call will work better in this instance. Also Read: How to Use Omnichannel Marketing and Customer Engagement to Enhance Restaurant Marketing Here are the best methods for collecting customer feedback, and their specific use cases: 1. Long form-based email surveys One easy way to collect feedback is to create a survey form with a set of questions, sent via email. The best time to use this approach is when a company wants detailed inputs, such as feedback on a new feature, or suggestions to improve a product. Companies should only send surveys like this to engaged users--friendly customers or users that companies have worked closely with in the past. These are the people who are most likely to take the time to provide feedback. These surveys should not ask too many questions, because the more questions respondents are asked, the more likely respondents will “speed” through the survey. This will affect the quality and reliability of their data. These surveys should ask open-ended questions, as opposed to multiple-choice questions which can give a company answers based on their own assumptions. An example of an open-ended question could be: “What could be improved in the product?” Have respondents start the survey on a positive note, by asking what they currently like about a company’s product. 2. Short in-app surveys A company’s customers are often thinking about ways a product can work better for them. Perhaps parts of a solution are missing for their needs, or maybe the design could look a little better or maybe they have found something that is broken. More often than not, these customers don’t communicate this feedback — unless there is a big problem. That’s why it’s a good idea for companies to offer a survey to customers while they are using the product. The survey can be prompted the moment a user has finished interacting with a specific feature in the app, for example. The key is to keep this survey short. Users are in an app for a certain purpose, so companies should only make these surveys 2-3 questions at most. 3. Transactional emails These email companies can send to customers right after they’ve done something significant: filled in a form, upgraded to a new plan, and so on. Asking the right question in these emails can often garner helpful information about a customer journey. For example, businesses can ask users to rate their delivery right after they have delivered a product. Companies can send customers a quick one-liner question or a short multiple-choice question. The key is to gain insight at the right time without burdening them with too many questions. The peak-end rule indicates that sending a transactional email just after a customer has upgraded is a good idea Asking a question at that juncture would evoke positive feelings about the product and set them on the path to loyalty. Also Read: How to Bring the Customer Journey to Life? 4. Net Promoter Score Surveys A Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a technology solution which asks the simplest question a company can and should ask its customers: “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague, on a scale of 0-10?” The greatest advantage of NPS is the simplicity and ease of use. It can be set up in minutes and is easily understood by everyone in an organization. It also makes it very easy for companies to compare themselves with the NPS standard in their own industry. Once companies have collected feedback, it’s a good idea to let customers know they have been heard. |
Marcus Guiliano
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