Customer satisfaction - how to carry out a customer satisfaction survey

Customer satisfaction - an indicator on which the success of your business depends. Thanks to the satisfaction while shopping, customers are happy to return to previously verified sellers. In order for consumers not to leave us for competition and become regular customers of your store, read the article below and remember the mysterious formula that will help you take care of the customer satisfaction level.

Customer satisfaction - the role in running a company

The customer satisfaction is his emotional state after shopping. The level of customer satisfaction and loyalty can always fluctuate in two directions: negative, indicating that the customer experience is destroyed by terrible customer service; or positive - the buyer is in seventh heaven after using your product or service.

A high level of customer satisfaction increases the loyalty to your company. Research conducted by Lasha (1990) and TARP (1986) shows that 92% of satisfied customers plan to buy again from the same company. Remember that responding to customer complaints is an important activity of every store! Among customers who reported a complaint but for some reason didn't receive a response from the company, the likelihood of resignation from buying again decreases to 46%. If you monitor the quality of customer service and regularly respond to negative comments from consumers, the probability of a dissatisfied customer coming for your product again increases to 91%, which is almost the same as among satisfied people.

How to measure customer satisfaction and increase in the company's revenues?

If you want to increase your customers satisfaction, you should first explain the reasons for both the negative and positive emotional state after purchasing your brand products and services. In order to meet the criteria and expectations of customers, it's worth using a special tool - Customer Satisfaction Survey. It's a set of methodologies that are aimed at accurately understanding the needs of customers, increasing consumer loyalty and determining the measurement of their satisfaction. The Customer Satisfaction Survey helps entrepreneurs answer important questions: 

• Does your product meet the expectations of consumers?
• If not, what do customers expect from your product or service?
• In what direction should you plan your strategic activities?
• What elements of customer service in your company should be improved?

The Customer Satisfaction Survey is carried out in 4 stages:

1. Determining of customer needs.
2. Designing a questionnaire.
3. Concluding the survey.
4. Analysing of data and drawing conclusions.

Data from the study most often explain several indicators, such as: Net Promoter Score, Customer Effort Score, Satisfaction Index.

Net Promoter Score

The NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a tool used to measure customer loyalty. It allows to identify problems that consumers encounter while shopping. Example question to help count the NPS:

"Would you recommend our company to your friends?"

Most often, such a question is presented in the form of a scale from 0 to 10, where the 0 rating is "lack of trust in the company", and 10 is "I’m satisfied with the services of this store". The NFS indicator allows to explain the roles of consumers according to Reichheld, and then, on the basis of the obtained results, to implement changes in customer service: 9-10 - promoters, 7-8 - indifferent, 0-6 - critics. Net Promoter Score formula = % promoters - % critics.

Customer Effort Score

Another test method is the CES (Customer Effort Score). It consists in measuring the customer's experience, the effort made during the entire purchasing process. Thanks to this method, you can check, for example, how the complaint process is carried out in the store, etc. The CES question is usually a 5-point scale, with 1 being 'very little' and 5 being 'very much'. The CES formula = % of people who answered 4-5 - % of people who answered 1-2.

"How much effort did you have to put into your order?" 

Remember! 74% of people change brands if they think the purchasing process is too difficult. 

Źródło: https://www.grohawk.com/customer-effort-score/

Client Satisfaction Index

The latest and most popular is the CSAT, or Client Satisfaction Index, which describes the overall level of consumer satisfaction with a product or service. There is no specific question pattern here, so you can adapt it to your needs. Most often, the 5-point Likert scale is used again, but open-ended questions or standard closed-ended questions can also be used. Here are some examples of the questions used in the questionnaires:

"What is your overall assessment of the satisfaction with our product?"

"What is your overall satisfaction after your last contact with us?"

"On a scale from 1 to 5 (1 – poorly, 5 – perfectly), how would you rate………………….? ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 )"

The downside of this study is that when answering a similar question, every consumer interprets their satisfaction in a different way. But at the same time, CSAT helps to evaluate the overall performance of the company, if it's developing in the right direction and if it meets the customer's needs.

Customer satisfaction - conclusion

Don't be afraid of new challenges and try to conduct a satisfaction survey of your customers. But remember, to increase sales in your store and attract more and more customers. After analyzing the results of the survey it's worth taking care of customer service and implement interesting ideas aimed at improving it. Online customer support means monitoring customer feedback, responding to every customer's comment, professionally solving the problems of a dissatisfied consumer, etc. If you are already planning to search for information and applications that can help you in this, we invite you to get familiar with the tool automating the customer service process - Rating Captain. Read how Rating Captain influenced the development of IdeaShirt here.