Customer experience (CX) is fast becoming the key differentiator among brands, and searches for what is CX? have been blowing up for good reason. Studies show that 86 percent of consumers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience, proving that customer experience – and customer satisfaction (CSAT), by extension – can make or break a business. This is why companies should prioritize CSAT and continuously monitor reviews and feedback.
One way to do this is through surveys. You’ve likely received these surveys yourself after purchasing a product or interacting with customer support. If you’re a business owner, perhaps the experience made you start questioning 1) the importance of CX and 2) what is CSAT. Let’s take a closer look at these concepts, as well as their benefits and methodologies.
What is CX?
So, exactly what is CX and how does it impact your business? CX refers to a customer’s experience with a brand. Customer satisfaction and positive customer experience are among the most important assets a company can have. Satisfied customers or customers who have a good customer experience are likely to stay with the brand, purchase more products and refer more people. It’s hard to retain dissatisfied customers, and poor retention may result in a reduced customer base.
What is CSAT?
What is CSAT as a customer experience metric? It measures your customers’ sentiments regarding your products or services for a specific situation. A customer satisfaction score tells you if your products or services in such instances exceed, meet or fall short of your customer’s expectations. A CSAT score can also help you identify potential issues and resolve them at the individual and aggregate levels.
CSAT can be measured through a customer satisfaction survey. While modern companies understand the importance of gathering CSAT survey scores, not everyone knows how to create a customer satisfaction survey. Having a better understanding of customer satisfaction marketing and the different customer satisfaction metrics can help you create good CSAT surveys.
There are several agencies that provide survey campaign management services who can help you. Hiring a survey campaign management company can help businesses who do not know how to create a customer satisfaction survey and companies who need help with customer experience marketing..Furthermore, they review the results and respond appropriately to feedback, ensuring their clients have and maintain a positive online reputation.
What is a Customer Satisfaction Survey?
A customer satisfaction survey, also called a CSAT survey, is composed of open-ended and closed-ended questions about a business’s product or service, a customer’s brand loyalty and their experience with customer support or complaint resolution. A CSAT questionnaire may include other questions to better understand the customers’ wants and needs.
Companies may have varied customer satisfaction score systems and they’ll need to factor this in when drafting their CSAT questions and creating their CSAT questionnaire. A customer satisfaction score could be tied to a numerical value based on customers’ feedback. In this system, a nine or 10 out of 10 (or a 4 or 5 out of 5) is a good CSAT score. Another company might instead base its CSAT score on retention and repeat customers.
Benefits of Launching a CSAT Survey Campaign
Running a CSAT survey campaign has several benefits. Whether or not you get a good CSAT score, the survey campaign can generate a wealth of knowledge to draw upon.
- With customer satisfaction at the core of product innovations, the feedback you get when customers answer your CSAT questions can help you improve your product or service.
- CSAT surveys also help identify potential brand advocates and improve targeting.
- Data derived from customer satisfaction surveys can drive relationship marketing and customer retention.
- Customers’ insights based on your CSAT questions can help you make informed business decisions.
How to Create a Customer Satisfaction Survey
Survey design is vital in survey campaign management. A survey campaign management company can take care of this for you. If you have an in-house customer experience marketing team or if you prefer to do it on your own, you’ll want to have a clear focus on the survey design and content to get the data that you need.
You have the option to use online survey tools that can help you with this. Most of them will have a customer satisfaction survey template ready, making the task even more convenient.
If you opt to do so, select a customer satisfaction survey template that matches your business type and survey campaign goals. Customize this customer satisfaction survey template by adding your company logo and changing the colors and design elements to reflect your brand ahead of inputting your questions.
Before you start formulating your survey questions, you need to set your goals and plans so you can design your survey around what you want to accomplish. What customer satisfaction metrics will you need to measure to give you the data you need?
You need to be strategic because asking too many questions will make your customers abandon their surveys. One advantage of hiring a customer satisfaction survey company is they are well-versed in tactics that increase survey responses. Included in the survey campaign management services is sifting through your options and asking your customers the right questions.
Your survey method will depend on the customer satisfaction metrics you want to use:
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) – This measures the customer’s sentiment regarding a specific interaction. Here are a few common questions that gather CSAT scores:
• On a scale of one to five, how satisfied were you with your experience today? Please share additional feedback if you have any.
• Were you satisfied with the level of support you received from our customer service agent?
Customer Effort Score (CES) – This measures the customer’s ease of experience in completing an action, such as completing a purchase or resolving an issue. Questions regarding this metric include:
• Overall, how easy was it to book your online ticket with us?
• Were you able to find the resolution you were looking for on the self-help page?
• How easy was it to resolve your concern?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) – This determines referral potential and customer loyalty by asking how likely a customer would be to recommend a business to friends or colleagues. The survey question could be:
• How likely are you to recommend the company to a colleague, friend or family member?
NPS respondents are categorized based on their scores:
• Promoter – Good customer feedback examples are scores of nine and 10 (out of 10) or “Very Satisfied.”
• Passive – Customers rate the experience with scores of seven and eight (out of ten) or “Satisfied.” This may seem like good customer feedback examples, but they’re not. These are the customers who may transfer their business to your competitors when offered something they perceive to be better than what they’re getting.
• Detractors – Customer ratings are below seven out of ten. These customers are likely to leave bad reviews, not recommend the brand or transfer their business to your competitors.
There are various question types you can use for your CSAT survey.
- Binary Scale: These questions generate dichotomous answers, such as yes/no or thumbs up/thumbs down answers.
- Semantic Differential: You can ask binary questions and use semantic differential scales in your CSAT questionnaire that allow gradations to your score.
- Multiple Choice: This gathers categorical variables. Customers are presented with at least three mutually-exclusive options.
- Scale Questions: This is a commonly used survey design. Most NPS surveys ask customers to rate how likely they are to refer people to the company using a scale of 1-5, like a Likert scale.
- Open-ended Questions: This type of survey gathers qualitative feedback that answers “why” to understand the customer’s value proposition.
How to Send Out a Customer Satisfaction Survey
Determine your survey recipients and decide on when to send out your survey. Most companies ask too late. Your customers’ feedback will have no impact in such cases.
Ideally, the surveys should be sent at different stages of the customer lifecycle. Covering more touchpoints gives you a better picture of your brand’s customer experience. A survey campaign management company or a customer satisfaction survey company can send surveys to all your customers, making sure no one is overlooked and no touchpoint is missed. Customer satisfaction marketing teams can segment your customers and send different surveys per segment, as well.
A general rule of thumb is to send customers a survey immediately after a phone or chat interaction, after a purchase or after several days from when they log a complaint. Some companies send surveys to their customers six months after a transaction to check for customer loyalty.
Comprehensive surveys are usually sent via email, although many companies are already utilizing mobile apps to collect consumer feedback.
Regularly collecting customer feedback tells your customers that you are constantly working to give them a positive customer experience. If you only send surveys when customers are having poor experiences, they will get the impression that this is just a save effort and that you don’t really care about their satisfaction.
And one final tip? Don’t forget to thank them for responding.
This may sound like a handful, but consistency is key. Many companies hire agencies that provide survey campaign management services. These professionals can take care of giving you relevant data from CSAT surveys conducted.
What to do Once You’ve Received Your Responses
It is important to analyze the data gathered for trends. If a significant number of respondents have given feedback regarding the usability of your product or on the customer support they received, it would be a good move to look into these.
Driving customer satisfaction should be a company-wide effort, so it would be helpful to send relevant feedback to the concerned departments.
Low CSAT, NPS and CES scores should be handled with care. It is important to reach out to the respondents and understand their reasons behind these scores. Implement customer experience marketing techniques and turn these experiences into marketing and retention opportunities.
A seven or an eight is not a good CSAT score. While the customers may have nothing negative to say about your company, these scores indicate that they may take their business elsewhere if they are offered something better.
Hiring an online reputation management agency can take care of customer satisfaction marketing for you. These agencies use reputation management software and customer satisfaction marketing tactics, so you can turn a passive NPS score into a promoter score. Online reputation management agencies can also monitor feedback and reviews posted online and reach out to your customers.
That is not to say that you should disregard your satisfied customers. These people deserve more focus because they can potentially become your brand ambassadors – they are the likeliest to purchase more products from you and bring in more customers through word of mouth.
Most companies choose to display reviews on their websites with widgets. It’s a good marketing practice to ensure the visibility of good customer feedback examples because many people look to online reviews and recommendations to make their buying decisions.
Conclusion
Having an ultra-connected customer base makes it more important than ever to ensure customer satisfaction and to maintain a positive online reputation. Customers these days can conveniently share their experiences on social media and third-party review sites, and this can impact brand perception. Seventy-four percent of buyers consider word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their buying decisions and 92 percent trust their families’ and friends’ recommendations.
When you send and monitor CSAT surveys, make sure to close the feedback loop. You have the opportunity to resolve the issues of your dissatisfied customers and make them feel valued. You can even turn their experience into a positive one, and gain insights on things your brand still needs to work on.
Bad reviews and negative feedback are inevitable, but when people see the company’s efforts to remedy the situation, they are more likely to have a better appreciation for the company. This is why many companies hire online reputation management agencies like Rize Reviews.
Our Rize team of professionals can retain dissatisfied customers and grow a company’s consumer base. Rize Reviews uses technology and techniques to generate more feedback than any DIY campaign could. More importantly, we can constantly monitor feedback on all platforms and review sites and respond appropriately.
By being ahead of your customers through strategic survey campaign management, you can improve your brand’s overall CSAT score and maintain a positive online reputation. In the highly competitive digital landscape, having a positive online reputation is key to your online success. Don’t know how to get started? Contact us today and we’ll be happy to help!
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