Customer satisfaction is a very crucial component of a business. It can significantly help a business grow. There are plenty of ways business owners can improve customer satisfaction, including offering high-quality products and services, offering excellent customer service, and even rewarding loyal customers.
But how can you know that indeed your customers are satisfied with your brand and the products and services you are offering them? Well, thankfully, there are metrics you can use to measure customer satisfaction.
In this article, we discuss the different types of customer satisfaction metrics business owners or marketers can use to measure customer satisfaction. But before we delve into them, let’s discuss why it is important.
Why is it important to measure customer satisfaction?
If you are a new business owner, you are probably wondering if it is worth measuring customer satisfaction. The truth of the matter is that it can be very beneficial to measure customer satisfaction. Here is why measuring customer satisfaction is important. You can use survey maker to collect customer feedback and even conduct survey research. All these can help you improve customer satisfaction.
1. It can help you become customer-centric
If your customers are not satisfied with your products, services, or brand, they are more likely to move to your competitors. That’s why business owners need to fight customer dissatisfaction as much as possible.
By measuring customer satisfaction, companies can be able to identify factors of dissatisfaction. By doing so, they can implement the necessary measures to improve customer satisfaction before customers move to the next brand.
2. It can allow you to predict future behaviors
Through customer satisfaction, you will be able to gather the necessary data, including the trends and purchase history. This data can help you successfully predict future customer behaviors and make the necessary improvements.
3. It can help you improve your marketing efforts
Understanding what your customers like and what they don’t like is something that you cannot underestimate. If you know the challenges your customers are facing and what aspects of your business can solve their problems, you will know what to focus on when it comes to marketing.
4. It can help you improve customer experience
Customer dissatisfaction can be caused by various factors. It could be because of the quality of your product or service, or poor customer service. By measuring customer satisfaction, you will be able to reveal principal areas of improvement. This will enable you to improve your product where necessary to satisfy your customers. In addition to that, measuring customer satisfaction will also provide ideas for improving customer relationship efficiency.
With that said, let’s take a look at some of the best metrics for measuring customer satisfaction.
The best metrics for measuring customer satisfaction
1. Customer Satisfaction Score [CSAT]
CSAT is one of the most popular metrics used to measure customer satisfaction. Customer Satisfaction Score is used to rate the overall satisfaction with the service or services received by a customer. This metric tends to ask the question- “How would you rate your overall satisfaction with the service?”
Customers are generally asked to rate their levels of satisfaction on a scale from 1 to predetermined maximum numbers, typically 5 to 10. Sometimes, it can be a percentage scale [0 to 100]. Lower scores mean lower levels of customer satisfaction.
Another method is to use emojis rather than numbers as survey responses. Images, especially those of facial expressions are generally more engaging to survey respondents. They simply click on the one that closely reflects their experience.
Some of the top benefits of the CSAT survey include the ability to compare scores with other companies in the same industry as well as its simplicity. It is also inexpensive to implement.
2. Net Promoter Score [NPS]
Another popular and ideal metric you can use to measure customer satisfaction is the Net Promoter Score [NPS]. It measures the affective and behavioral dimensions of customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. It tends to evaluate the likelihood of customers to recommend your brand and products while at the same time providing a general idea of customer loyalty towards your brand.
NPS revolves around one question- “How likely are you to recommend our products and services?” The answer is given on a scale from 1to 10.
Based on their scores, customers are grouped into three categories:
- Score 9-10: Promoters
- Score 7-8: Passives
- Score 0-6: Detractors
The detractors are unhappy customers who are less likely to refer other consumers to your company. They may even spread negative word of mouth and damage your company’s reputation. Passives are typically satisfied customers who you failed to fully engage, but they are here to stay and won’t switch to another brand. Finally, promoters are customers to whom you should give your full attention- they keep purchasing from your brand and refer your services to other consumers.
Knowing your promoters and detractors of your brand, it will be easy for you to calculate the NPS. That’s because NPS = % Promoters – % Detractors. NPS is easy to implement and it has a high response rate. It also promotes the word of mouth about your company and allows you to compare to the scores of other companies in your industry.
3. Customer Effect Score [CES]
Also known as CES, the Customer Effort Score is used to measure how much effort customers have put into a particular interaction with a brand. The survey tends to ask the question – “Did the company make it easy for you to handle your issue?” This is clearly a metric that has customer service applications.
CES is on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 being ‘strongly disagree’ and 7 beings ‘strongly agree’ in regards to what extent they agree if the company made it easy for them to handle their issue. Like with any other metric, the best time to ask a CES question is right after a customer has completed a CES-specific action. Some of the pros of the Customer Effort Score are that it helps to identify the pain points of your customers, and also has a tangible effect on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
Final thoughts
There you have it- the best metrics for measuring customer satisfaction you can use. When it comes to choosing the right metric for you, make sure that you clearly understand what it measures and what it doesn’t. It should also have a precise scoring system and be easy to implement.