There is popular saying that “content is king”. But you know I’m all about making things easy for your customers with systems and processes, so I believe “the customer is king”!
Why? Because customer satisfaction is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Customer satisfaction is the degree of happiness of a customer with the products and services your business provides and it is also a measure of the level that those products and services meet or surpass your customers’ expectations.
And you really want to exceed their expectations because a happy and delighted customer will sing your praises and you can’t get better marketing and social proof than that!
Why is customer satisfaction important?
If the customer is king, then it would be wise to always ensure (as much as humanly possible) to keep your customers happy.
- A satisfied customer is one who will be happy to do business with you again.
- It is known fact that a returning customer is worth 10 times their initial purchase.
- When your business meets the needs of your customers, it helps them build trust in you enough to tell others about what you offer.
- Satisfied customers automatically become your brand ambassadors.
- And they will not consider the competition because you satisfy all their pain-points.
- When customers are satisfied they will become your referral engine.
How do you ensure customer satisfaction?
There are a number of ways to ensure your customers are always satisfied.
However, keep in mind that you cannot possibly meet the expectations of everyone. Exceeding clients expectations regularly is one way to ensure customer satisfaction, but it is always better to under promise and overdeliver than to over promise and under deliver.
Some ways to exceed customer expectations are:
- Delivery timeframe: Always ensure the delivery of products and services is timely and professional. Do not promise unbelievable timeframes to the client or timeframes you are not completely certain you will meet.
- Pricing: Pricing is a delicate matter and many potential clients will weigh up the price options between two competitors and often, this would influence their decision on who to do business with. Ensure your prices are fair but do not compromise on quality to achieve this.
- Are your products of a quality that is synonymous with what you are offering? Or do you just stamp on a price you think your product is worth? A happy customer is one who is convinced that the money they are spending for a product is worth it.
- Handling emergencies: Unfortunately, many businesses do not have a system in place to handle customers’ emergency orders. Being able to handle emergency orders gives your business the edge others don’t have.
- Responsiveness: Does your business listen to what the customers are saying? Do you respond or shrug it off? When customers know you listen, they know you care.
- Conflict resolution: A good business not only listens to the good feedback, they also listen out for the bad. How does your business handle customer issues? Resolving issues professionally and timely increases your chances of having a satisfied customer.
How do you measure a customer’s happiness?
There are a number of ways to monitor and measure the degree of happiness of your customers such as shares, impressions, likes, testimonials, online surveys (data is your best friend!),referrals and repeat business. Social listening will give you a clue on what people are saying about your brand, products and services.
Online surveys will get you specific information – and this is key to a thriving business.
Conclusion
Always seek to get customer feedback; both good and bad. This will help you improve on the good aspects and improve on the bad and handle customer conflicts professionally and in a timely fashion.
HOT TIP: A good practice is to carry out customer surveys and quarterly or annual brand and business audits to gauge customer satisfaction and improve your customer-satisfaction systems and processes.
If you need help with your customer satisfaction rates, an online survey will help you understand what you need to improve. I would love to help you with this, simply get in touch here or click the image below.
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