Market experts and businesses define customer satisfaction as a measurement of how well a product or service meets up to or exceeds customer’s expectations.
Noticeably the sudden spike in interest and focus on the importance of customer satisfaction occurred when social media established itself as a vital part of our lives. Nowadays, customers will post or share their experience with a brand or their satisfaction or dissatisfaction regarding any product or service, potentially impacting your business.
It’s been said over and over again that Customer Satisfaction is vital for your business and its growth, here are 8 actionable ways to improve your Customer Satisfaction:
Collect, Respond to and Implement Customers’ Feedback
Customer feedback is one of the most valuable resources you can gain to further your business growth. Since feedback is a direct indicator of how happy your customers are about your brand, products, or services, it is a reliable source to understand your customer satisfaction level.
According to a study by Microsoft, 52% of people around the globe believe that companies need to take action on feedback provided by their customers.
You can create unique and specific surveys for you customers, this would be beneficial in understanding the performance of a new initiative like a new product launch or a new service. This practice exists in restaurants where servers usually ask customers how the food is or how their experience is. It is at a different scale but thinking about customer feedback and reviews can help a business.
For example if a customer at the restaurant said their dish was too spicy for them or needed it to be changed for some reason the server would react to that feedback. Similarly you should consider implementing valuable customer feedback into your products and business. With a tool like Simplify360 you can automate and trigger surveys for generic or specific rules, making it easy for businesses to collect specific data.
Responding to customers’ reviews shows them, you value their feedback and are committed to improving their experience. Receiving positive feedback is great, but you’re not making the most of it if you are not reacting or responding to them. Responding to positive feedback can help you turn customers into brand advocates which can finally increase customer satisfaction.
Take a proactive approach for higher Customer Satisfaction
A proactive approach is important when it comes to preventing crises; with the right tools, you can create a customer service strategy that is proactive rather than reactive. Proactive customer service allows companies to take measures to resolve issues even before they occur.
Proactive customer service helps improve customer retention rates, which in turn increases customer loyalty. Initiatives like assisting your customers proactively can help you improve your brand image and reputation. Which then helps improve customer satisfaction.
Not to mention the volume of cases your Customer Service team receives would reduce considerably, ensuring that it is the cases of high complexity that get prioritized and resolved faster. You can create a brand playbook for your customer service team, containing FAQ’s and repetitive queries. This would make your customer service process consistent and easy for your agents. It would also reduce your first response time (FRT) and turn around time (TAT) which would increase your customer satisfaction score.
Create personal and memorable experiences
Authentic customer experiences are essential for getting customers to trust your brand and do business with you. 49% of buyers have made purchases after receiving a more personalized experience.
Always try to address your customers by their name, it is a friendlier approach that doesn’t feel forced. There is no longer the expectation for uber formal interactions from brands when it comes to customer service. A more genuine, friendly and informal tone can help you personalize your interactions.
Another way to create a more personalized experience is by rewarding loyal or frequent customers. Birthday offers and coupons are a small way to build a relationship with your customers, making their experience more personal.
For example, a skin-care brand can send discounts and offers to customers who frequently interact with them on social media and promote their brand, or even their loyal custom base. When customers enjoy and are excited by their experience, they are more likely to spread the word about your brand.
Be on the channels your customers are on.
How convenient is it for a customer to reach out to you?
Your aim as a brand should be to make it as easy as possible for customers to get in touch with you. Luckily Social Media has solved that problem, making it extremely easy for both brands and customers to be easily accessible. It’s an easy way to positively impact your CSAT score.
Customers are on multiple channels and shop on various platforms, an omnichannel customer service platform can help you collect valuable data about your customers. By providing omnichannel customer service, you are ensuring that your interactions with customers are consistent across channels, and convenient. 89% of customers get frustrated having to repeat their issues to multiple representatives.
Provide convenient and quick customer service
An omnichannel customer service strategy definitely makes it more convenient for customers to contact you. By integrating chatbots into your customer service process you can reduce the first response time as well as the average handling time of cases, making your customer service faster.
With chatbots, you enable your agents to prioritize more complex cases rather than spending their time on minor queries. According to a study by Forrester, 63% of customers are happy to be served by a chatbot, if there is an option to escalate the conversation to a human agent.
With a tool like Simplify360, you can count on cases seamlessly transferred from bot to agent. The agent will have all the necessary context required, so they don’t need to ask the customer to repeat their issue. Automate 40% to 70% of conversations across all digital platforms within the first quarter of implementation of the Simplify360 tool.
Enable customers to help themselves
Providing self-help options enhances their experience. It is far more convenient for customers to resolve minor queries like log-in issues or account queries by themselves rather than putting in the effort to contact your brand and wait for a response.
90% of consumers now expect a brand or organization to offer a self-service customer support portal.
You can create a help guide with the answers to the most frequently asked queries, most brands have a portal that customers can access to help themselves. There is a plethora of knowledge base software or Support sites for FAQ, that are very easy to use. Making this process convenient and fast shows customers, you value their time.
Measure your customer satisfaction frequently
Customer Satisfaction should be a KPI you measure regularly, it helps you understand how customers feel about your products and services. Knowing your customer sentiment and opinion about your products can help you update it to their needs. Investing in Social Listening to understand your customers is a great way to create relevant products that fill the industry gap.
You can send a customer CSAT (customer satisfaction) survey after they purchase a product, interact with a customer service agent, after receiving the products, and more. The data collected for these surveys can be of great help when implemented, they can take a product from good to amazing.
Build Strong communities online
You can create an online community as a dedicated space where customers can interact with each other and you, like a Facebook group. A less defined community space, such as social media, can be very useful and helpful in creating a close-knit community that is engaging and informative.
Creating a place that explicitly provides customers with space to ask questions, share tips and give you feedback can also simplify your customer service process.
An established space like this will also enable you to engage with them effectively and improve customer retention. It is a step forward in helping your business grow as well.
To conclude, measuring customer satisfaction is more about taking pride in your brand than just customer retention. It shows a business’s dedication to keep pushing the boundaries to grow. Customers are the most crucial part of any business, without customers you wouldn’t have a business, so it should go without saying that customer satisfaction is one of the most important ways to ensure you prioritize your customers.