Need-To-Know Tips And Metrics To Effectively Measure Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is key when it comes to running a successful ecommerce business. Happy customers mean more referrals and more positive word-of-mouth advertising. Plus, happy customers are more likely to give you repeat business.

So how do you know how happy your customers are? How can you measure your rate of customer satisfaction?

Conduct Online Surveys

Online surveys are the most effective way to collect qualitative feedback from your customers, allowing you to determine whether or not their pain points were addressed, if they found value in your company and offerings, or if they encountered any points of friction.

Here are three top choices for online survey tools:

floq

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justin christianson 1Justin Christianson“Surveys are extremely effective at hearing the good and the bad regarding how customers see your business. Surveys allow us to gather data and fix any underlying problem areas.

A quick tip for increasing satisfaction is to call all of your new customers. It may sound expensive, but when is the last time you got a courtesy call to say thank you for buying something and for being a customer? It can go a long way and has loads of other benefits.”

Focus On The Right Metrics

When you conduct online surveys or otherwise ask for customer feedback, make sure to touch on all six of the major metrics for customer satisfaction:

1. Customer Expectation Versus Perception – Ask customers if your product or service lived up to their expectations—or if not, how it fell short.

2. Loyalty – Ask customers if they would recommend your product or service to their friends and family. Ask them how likely they are to do business with your company again in the future.

3. Affect (liking/disliking) and Cognition – Ask your customers questions about their levels of satisfaction with the performance of your product or the value of the service you provided. Ask them questions about how important a certain quality or benefit of your product or service is to them.

According to Scott Smith, Ph.D. of Qualtrics, “Affect is best measured in the context of product attributes or benefits,” and “cognition refers to judgment: the product was useful (or not useful); fit the situation (or did not fit); exceeded the requirements of the problem/situation (or did not exceed); or was an important part of the product experience (or was unimportant).”

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4. Customer Experience Versus Ideal Experience – Ask customers how their experience with your product or service compares to their “ideal” or perfect shopping experience.

5. Intentions – Ask customers questions about future or hypothetical interactions with your company, such as, “Do you intend to use my company’s services within the next six months?” or “Would you use them again sometime over the next year?”

6. Emotions – Ask customers for their opinions about their overall levels of satisfaction with your company and its offerings.

Scott Smith“The single greatest predictors of customer satisfaction are the customer experiences that result in attributions of quality. Perceived quality is often measured in one of three contexts:

  1. Overall quality
  2. Perceived reliability
  3. Extent of customer’s needs fulfilled.”

Use Support Tools With Ticket Systems

According to Ross Beard of Client Heartbeat, “91% of your unhappy customers will never purchase services from you again.” But using customer support tools with ticket systems can help you keep track of customer interactions and make sure that each question or concern gets effectively resolved.

Three good choices for customer support tools include Zendesk, Helpscout, and Desk.com.

Simplify The Customer Experience

Manish PunjabiManish Punjabi“Give customers an effortless experience. Amazon allows you to buy anything with one click. Take work off their plates and put it onto yours. Don’t make them repeat themselves. Lower the barrier to contact you for help. Make your phone number, email, and chat support easy as heck to find. These little things lower frustration and increase customer loyalty.”

What do you think about these tips for measuring customer satisfaction? What are you doing to create a more enjoyable experience for your customers and clients and how are you assessing the results? 

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