Did you know it takes 12 positive customer experiences to make up for one negative experience? (Parature).
Customer satisfaction is a term that is part of a customer’s experience, which measures how a product or service your business offers has met or exceeded customer expectations. Discovering if your customers are satisfied with your service is an essential and vital part of running a successful business, and here are five reasons why.
1. Customer satisfaction increases positive word of mouth
Negative reviews can often spread quicker than positive ones, especially with how interconnected the world is today. Having disgruntled customers speak negatively about your business can ultimately be damaging to your business.
However, if your customers are happy, they are more likely to recommend you to their network, something small businesses rely on as 85% of their new business comes from word of mouth.
2. Customer satisfaction keeps you ahead of your competitors
Having a consistently excellent customer satisfaction rating is beneficial for maintaining a high business retention rate. It also keeps you ahead of competitors that may not be as customer-focused. Exceeding your customer expectations and needs will significantly increase your customer retention.
3. Customer satisfaction is an indicator of customer loyalty
A beneficial factor of customer satisfaction is it is a gateway to earning and maintaining commitment. It often takes three years for a customer to become loyal to your business. It is then essential to maintain this relationship and keep them satisfied, not only to retain their business but also to give you an insight into how you can improve your service.
4. Customer satisfaction can measure the possibility of customer repurchase intentions
Being able to measure customer satisfaction is the best way to see how likely a customer is to repurchase in the future and promotes customer retention. It is also more cost-effective and less time consuming to retain your existing customers than to acquire new customers.
5. Customer satisfaction highlights ways to improve your business
By measuring how satisfied your customers are and obtaining feedback from past customers, you can highlight your business areas that need refining. The information customers share with you will also highlight which areas of the business are performing well. Some companies link employee and department bonus schemes to high standards of customer satisfaction.
Consistently high levels of customer satisfaction will anchor significant competitive advantages for your business. These include repeat buying, reducing the cost of doing business; you will also be able to command higher prices leading to higher profits and business growth.
If customer satisfaction is your goal, putting in place a survey that an independent market research professional conducts will ensure that customers' views are impartial. The market research agency will also be able to compare results at regular intervals and measure changes over time. At the end of the market research, reports are given, including recommendations for your business.
Using the NPS (Net Promoter Score) can implement a quick and cost-effective measurement of customer satisfaction. Based on the customers ' most recent experience, we ask one question, enabling you to react quickly and address your team's customer service quality almost in real-time.
To find out more about JEM and how you can use our Market Research expertise to help your business, please call us on 01933 271717 or email jevans@jemmarketing.co.uk.
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