3 Ways to Measure Customer Satisfaction
The satisfaction of a customer is the greatest gift a business owner can receive. As customers engage with your business and purchase from you for the first time and then many times after, ensuring they have a positive experience is vitally important.
The second most important piece of this puzzle is accurately measuring each customer’s experience. This information helps bring actionable insights to data. A great customer experience is linked to improved brand loyalty, higher retention rates, and increases the possibility of creating customers who spread the word. Unhappy customers hurt a brand’s image while also leading to loss of clients and revenue.
Three Customer Experience surveys allow you to measure and track your customer’s satisfaction.
There are three great opportunities to gain a better understanding of your customers view: Customer Effort Survey, Customer Satisfaction Survey, and Net Promoter Score. Each of these help in measuring the customer experience, often listed as CX. Hubspot defines customer experience as “the impression your customers have of your brand as a whole throughout all aspects of the buyer’s journey”.
What makes up the customer experience (CX)? A customer’s satisfaction will typically derive from two main components of your business: 1. Their experience with your staff/employees (customer service) and 2. Their satisfaction of your product. Consumers will judge you on these two items, and you want to make sure you get both right.
Consumers overall withhold so much power in how we manage our companies, mainly because there are so many options for the same thing or similar products/services. The world has gotten much smaller within all industries and it doesn’t take much more than a click of a few buttons to find an alternative, divulge a negative experience to the masses, or gloat about the best product ever.
So, how do you know how customers feel about their CX? Utilize one of these three customer satisfaction survey types: Customer Effort Survey, Customer Satisfaction Survey, and Net Promoter Score.
Customer Effort Score
The Customer Effort Score is a brief survey that focuses more on the short-term view of the customer’s experience.
What it is: A metric that measures customer satisfaction based on the effort a customer has to make in order to interact with your business’ product and/or service. This is helpful to identify how easy or difficult a customer has in completing certain actions with your company and areas for possible efficiencies.
Customer Effort Score - “How easy was it to complete your purchase today?”
Benefits: Most effective after a client has completed an interaction with customer support
Example: “How easy was it to complete your purchase today?”
How to measure: Scores can range from Easy to Difficult or 0% to 100% based on the scale used
Good vs. Bad Measurement: Based on the rating scale used, calculate the total of positive responses versus negative ones. For example, in asking people to rank from “Extremely Difficult” to “Extremely Easy”, calculate the Easy and Extremely Easy results and subtract them from the Neutral, Difficult, and Extremely Difficult results.
Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSAT)
A CSAT survey is one of the more popular survey types used in identifying the customer experience. It is also the most straightforward survey in measuring customer satisfaction.
What it is: A customer experience metric which measures customer satisfaction levels
Customer Satisfaction Survey - “Based on your recent purchase, how satisfied are you with Product X?”
Benefits: Single to multi-question survey that is best sent after a client has completed the onboarding process to better understand the effectiveness of your customer journey
Example: “Based on your recent purchase, how satisfied are you with Product X?”
How to measure: While the questions are typically asked in a range of “Not at All Satisfied to Extremely Satisfied”, scores are then counted, and an average calculated based on the answers received. Then, these scores are disseminated in percentage form, typically from 0% to 100%, based on the questions asked.
Good vs. Bad Measurement: Take the number of “Satisfied” survey respondents and divide it by the total number of responses received, then multiply by 100. For example, if 200 people were surveyed and 50 people said they were “Satisfied”, you would have a 25% CSAT score.
NPS - Net Promoter Score
Net Promoter Score - “How likely are you to recommend Product X to your friends or colleagues?”
Net Promotor Scores are one of the best ways to identify long-term loyalty to your brand. When used efficiently, the NPS can be used at any customer touchpoint such as after a purchase, at the start of a trial, prior to client meet, after a customer service touchpoint, and the list goes on.
What it is: Measures how satisfied customers are with your product or service, how loyal they are, and how likely they are to recommend you to peers
Overall Benefit: Quick survey that can be sent during any stage of the buying process and helps to predict customer churn.
Example: “How likely are you to recommend Product X to your friends or colleagues?”
How to measure: Detractors - Promoters
0-6 – Detractors (clients who are unhappy with your company and are at risk of churning);
7-8 – Passives (customers who like your company but don’t “love” it yet);
9-10 – Promoters (clients who love your company, and will actively promote it)
Good vs. Bad Measurement: Depending on how many responses you receive, your NPS score can range from -100 to 100. Anything under 0 is not great, 0-30 is a good score, 30-70 is great, and 70+ signifies you have extremely high loyalty
Can you use all three? Definitely, but it has to make sense for your business. Also, you want to be mindful not to cause survey fatigue to customers and push them away with the number of questions or number of times you reach out. Engagement should be engaging and having to consistently fill out answers sometimes becomes frustrating.
Spread out your surveys across the buying journey. Find unique ways to have fun with your surveys and consider incentivizing customers to participate in the future.
The biggest tip is to make sure you act on results. Customers can spot a phony pretty quickly, now a days, and asking for input but never making an improvement is one of the quickest ways to end up on a “not” list for consumers. Make sure your teams are prepared to take necessary steps for improvements after you’ve had a chance to gather insights from your CX surveys.