Low customer satisfaction ratings are a thorn in the side of any business, no matter the industry, lowering customer retention rates and killing the number of potential sales. Considering that far more customers bounce to a competitor instead of actively complaining about a business or product, being in touch with your customer’s satisfaction levels is paramount. Let’s go over four ways your businesses’ customer satisfaction levels can be elevated.
1. Regular Customer Satisfaction Analysis
Before you can know how to improve your current customer satisfaction levels, you must understand where they currently stand. First, collect the feedback you’ve received across all channels and quantify it using measuring processes. Customer-centric businesses are way more profitable; you don’t want to miss out on profits due to negligence. Here are a couple of pointers for where to start:
- Measuring customer satisfaction through metrics such as DSAT analysis (customer dissatisfaction, used to chart data points to analyze whether customers are dissatisfied with a product or service).
- Measuring NPS (net promoter score, in which you ask customers how likely they are to recommend your business).
2. Expand Multi-Channel Support
Once you’ve measured your current levels of customer satisfaction, now it’s time to look at the existing support channels you’re operating. The more channels you have available for customers to contact you, the likelier you will end up retaining those customers. Research shows that businesses with multi-channel engagement keep 89% more of their customers. Thus, it’s worth having a meaningful presence on multiple channels to assist customers with their purchases on channels such as email, social media platforms, live chat, and telephone. Having all bases covered allows you to be reached by all consumers on their preferred channels of choice, which is vital for any customer-centric business.
3. Encourage & Interact With Customer Feedback
There will always be more customers who don’t leave feedback and go to a competitor than those who actually complain. In fact, the percentage of non-complainers who leave is an astounding 91%. Thus, simply waiting for your customers to leave unsolicited feedback would not be a wise decision. Encouraging customer feedback can be as simple as leaving a link for a post-purchase survey or asking for feedback before launching a brand-new feature to ensure you’re not going to upset them. You can also utilize email marketing to proactively ask for product feedback and integrate surveys within your products if they are digital.
4. Reply to & Act on Negative Feedback
Arguably the most important step in this process, what matters most to customers is not the complaints you’re receiving but how you decide to reply and act on said feedback. A company that doesn’t listen to its consumer base and consistently receives negative reviews – without even bothering to respond – is bound to fail, especially with the new-found importance of customer review platforms. Thus, in the event of negative feedback, apologize to the customer and ask them what the company can do for them to improve their experience with one of your products. Be empathetic, direct, and thankful for them taking the time to offer constructive criticism. If everything gets resolved on your social media channel, that’s a bonus; now, everyone will see how caring your business is!
Wrap-Up
There are many more ways to improve your business’s customer satisfaction levels, but these four methods are a great place to start. If there’s one key thing to take away from this digest, it’s that today’s businesses work around the customer’s interests and the goal is to facilitate their experiences. This makes a customer-centric ethos indispensable.