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7 Reasons Why Customer Satisfaction Surveys Are So Important

Customer satisfaction surveys allow businesses to find out what their audience thinks about the services they provide. With a survey, you can better assess how your customers feel about your product, services, or general business processes. Customer surveys can be completed online, offline or on both fronts.

At the end of the process, you will discover information that will help reposition your business for more growth and success. Here is a closer look at why customer satisfaction surveys are important.

History of Customer Satisfaction Survey

History of Customer Satisfaction Survey

The concept of customer satisfaction surveys has been associated with commerce since its inception. Initially, business owners will gauge customer satisfaction through informal conversations or simply asking about their purchases. However, as trade grew, so did the need for a more systematic approach.

The Industrial Revolution brought about a significant increase in production scale, forcing business owners to take a more serious and standardized approach to customer satisfaction. This need for standardization was met by the National Quality Research Center (NQRC) at the University of Michigan, which introduced the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

This index is designed to provide clarity to both producers and consumers. It standardizes customer satisfaction measures and helps businesses understand the quality of products consumed by Americans.

Many different products have been researched and a lot of time spent evaluating and analyzing them before drawing conclusions and presenting them in index form. ACSI quickly gained traction, with many companies and government agencies incorporating it into their planning processes.

Since its inception, this index has become a standard and widely accepted measure of customer satisfaction. Despite the success of ACSI, many companies have also developed their own custom surveys to meet their specific needs and products.

How do Customer Satisfaction Surveys Work?

How do Customer Satisfaction Surveys Work

As mentioned above, there are a lot of different kinds of these surveys, especially now that businesses want to make sure that customer happiness surveys fit their needs. Conditions and facts for consumers. That’s why different kinds of polls do different things.

For more personalized conversations with responders, you can send these kinds of polls through emails, texts, or even call centers. But even though they are different, all customer polls serve the same purpose. The point of all surveys is to find out how satisfied customers are and then make them happier.

Types of Customer Satisfaction Survey

Types of Customer Satisfaction Survey

To understand how satisfaction polls work, you need to know about the different kinds of them. Once we’ve defined each one, we’ll talk about how they work and what they’re used for. For this conversation, we will look at five types:

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Survey

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Survey

The CSAT survey is widely acknowledged for gauging consumer contentment levels and is particularly popular among producers keen on enhancing their products and services. It entails multiple-choice questions tailored to the product’s nature, allowing consumers to express satisfaction levels.

For instance, a question might ask, “How would you rate your satisfaction with our product X?” with options ranging from “Very Unsatisfied” to “Very Satisfied”. This format enables clear expression of consumer views, facilitating analysis to pinpoint product strengths or areas of improvement.

Product Development Survey

Unique among survey types, this focuses on gathering public perceptions of a product during its development phase. Before mass production, companies distribute product samples to selected customers or retailers, seeking feedback on design, color, usability, and more. This helps determine a product’s viability and potential pricing.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) Survey

This survey assesses customer trust, loyalty, and likelihood to recommend a product or brand. Questions are framed around recommending the product or organization to friends or colleagues, with a scale of 0-10. This aids in identifying detractors, neutrals, and promoters, offering insights into customer loyalty and brand advocacy.

Customer Effort Score (CES) Survey

CES measures how hard a customer tries to solve a problem

Primarily used to evaluate service experiences, CES gauges the level of effort a customer exerts to resolve an issue. Questions ask about the ease of interacting with a company, with responses ranging from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree”. Free-text inputs allow for detailed feedback.

Usability (UX) Survey

Focused on digital technology, this survey assesses ease of use for web applications and software. Questions inquire about user experience using a particular product or application, with responses on a numerical scale or multiple-choice format. Simplicity is key, as these technologies should be user-friendly despite their complexity.

Why Should We Carry out Customer Satisfaction Surveys?

Customer satisfaction surveys are a valuable tool that can provide essential insights into customer preferences, opinions, and overall satisfaction with a product or service. We’ll explore the benefits of conducting customer satisfaction surveys and how they can help businesses improve customer relationships and drive business growth.

Measure Customer Satisfaction

Customer Satisfaction & Business Performance
Customer Satisfaction & Business Performance

There is a connection between customer satisfaction and business performance. If your customers are happy, you will generate higher revenue and reallocate customer-retention costs elsewhere. In order to reap the benefits of a strong brand identity, you have to offer your best quality products and services that are accessible from various devices and also ensure your customers are satisfied.

Customer reviews on Amazon
Customer reviews on Amazon

A customer satisfaction survey is the best way to achieve this. Using rating-based questions in the survey, you can find out the collective opinions of your customers—and draw conclusions on your brand’s prospects. A simple 1-10 opinion survey asking your customers to rate a product or service from 0-10 (0 being extremely negative and 10 being extremely positive) is a common example of a rating-based survey.

Discover Product or Service Improvement Opportunities

The most comprehensive market research is not enough to tell you exactly how your customers will receive your products or services. The average customer can quickly detect flaws in your products or business processes. Additionally, the needs of your target market will change from time to time.

Customer satisfaction surveys make it easier for you to get an idea of what is working and what isn’t regarding your products and services. Using the customer insights generated, you can learn more about the advantages and flaws of your products and services. This will help you to better solve the problems of your customers and meet their needs.

Make Your Customers Feel Valuable

When you ask your customers to take part in surveys, it communicates the fact that you value their opinion. It also shows you want them to play a role in shaping your business which can make them feel more connected to the brand.

Additionally, asking people what they think about your service or product makes them feel that you are not just after their money, but rather very much concerned about meeting their needs. This is an excellent way to convert your customers into brand ambassadors. There are many tools allowing you to create customer surveys, such as mailchimp, hubspot or salesforce survey.

Improve Customer Retention

Unhappy customers will take money that should have gone to your business elsewhere. Satisfied customers will remain loyal for as long as possible. By using customer satisfaction surveys, you can increase the number of customers that stick with your brand.

Remember, you may spend five times more to replace every customer you don’t retain. By finding out what your customers feel about your brand, you can react to possible triggers that will make you lose a customer’s loyalty. If you listen to a customer’s complaints and act on it, they are more likely to remain loyal compared to a customer that has never had any issues with your business in the past.

If you are operating in a competitive space, you need to always keep in mind that your customers have chosen you in the midst of dozens of other options. Use customer satisfaction surveys designed by a WordPress survey plugin to make sure your customers never have a reason to leave.

Generate Social Proof for Your Brand

More than ever, people are relying more on the recommendations of other consumers as a guide for their decision-making process. A publicly available customer satisfaction survey that paints your brand in a positive-light can do a lot for your customer-acquisition drives.

Good reviews from satisfied customers
Good reviews from satisfied customers

Additionally, a happy customer is generally good for your brand’s social image. Gathering social proof for eCommerce business is crucial because when a satisfied customer mentions something positive about your brand on social media, the thousands of impressions generated can help you get more leads and paying customers. In the same vein, negative comments will make people wary about patronizing your business—including people that have only just heard about your business through that review.

This is why you need to use customer satisfaction surveys to keep the number of happy customers as high as possible. Remember, those happy comments can serve as testimonials for your business, and they will remain valid for years to come offering you an evergreen way to promote your brand.

The situation is the same when it comes to word-of-mouth marketing. Here’s an example. Let’s assume you are traveling to a new city for a few days and you are on the hunt for an affordable hotel. Who will you trust more, the reviews on Google and opinions on social media or the recommendation of a friend who just came back from the same city a couple of weeks ago?

If you chose the latter, you are not alone. Many people will do the same. Now if the word-of-mouth on the hotel options was negative, you’d remove them completely from your list of prospective hotels to patronize.

This is why customer satisfaction surveys are more important than ever. With an army of customers happy with your business, you will enjoy positive social proof and word-of-mouth advertising—both of which can lead to more quality leads, and ultimately, faster conversions.

Generate Data for Business Decisions

In a highly competitive market, you can’t afford to make business decisions on a whim. Customer satisfaction surveys offer you an excellent way to generate actionable data that can guide your future business strategies. What are the parts of your business that should see more budgetary allocations?

Should you launch a new offline store? Should you spend more money on your digital or offline marketing? With the data from your customer satisfaction surveys, you can take decisions that will generate the most return for your brand.

Personalize Customer Experience

In a highly competitive business space, the customer experience is one of the most powerful unique selling points for most brands. How do your customers feel about patronizing your business? Is there a personal connection?

Think about how Apple users can happily go hours talking to anyone that cares to listen about why they love the products. Can your customers ever get to that level with your brand? It may be difficult to command Apple-level of loyalty, but with personalized customer experience, you can get really close.

Properly segmented customer satisfaction surveys help you to connect with your audience on a more personal level. This will increase their connection to your brand and also simplify customer retention.

How to Carry Out Successful Customer Satisfaction Surveys

To ensure your customer satisfaction survey generates enough response from your audience, here are a few things you should do:

Choose the right customer feedback survey channel

Are your customers super social? Are they a bit more open to deeper surveys? The first group may prefer a simple poll-styled survey where it will take only one or two clicks to complete the survey. In this situation, a social media poll or an email may be the best channel for the survey.

The second group, on the other hand, will only feel a survey is serious if it contains 5-7 questions. The preferred channel may also be email, a web form, or even an offline form. Find what works for your brand based on the demographics you are servicing.

Keep survey questions short, simple and relevant

Regardless of the survey channels you choose, it is important to keep everything short and simple. Attention spans are lower than ever today across all demographics, so any question that is longer than a few words will bore people quickly. In the same vein, the questions must be relevant to the customer satisfaction campaign. You don’t need to ask customers to help you choose a brand color in such a survey, for example.

Use A/B Testing to Find What Works

There are lots of factors that can affect the success rate of a survey campaign. The design of the survey content, the ease of access, and the delivery channel are only a few. Test various campaign styles using different combinations of these factors to find what works best.

Don’t Ignore the Customer Journey

Think carefully about the customer journey
Think carefully about the customer journey

A customer that has just landed on your website for the first time or one that has completed their first purchase may not be in the mood to take part in a customer satisfaction survey. This is why you need to think carefully about the customer journey when running your survey campaigns. Additionally, you will most likely get better insights from customers who have been with your brand long enough to have an opinion about your brand.

Consider Incentives

You may have to offer rewards to get customers to spend the few minutes required to complete the survey. This could be discounts, promo codes, a chance to enter for a grand prize, etc. Most people will ignore a survey unless they are nudged towards completing it.

Freebies are the best way to achieve this. It is important, however, that you put checks in place to ensure that survey answers are as honest as possible and not just filled for a chance to win something. Two good tips here:

  • Make sure only customers with a purchase history can take part in a survey
  • Include a minimum character limit for open-ended responses

Conclusion

Customer satisfaction surveys are a must for any brand in today’s highly competitive business landscape. They are your best bet to finding out if your product and services are leaving the right level of impact on your target audience.

It is also an excellent way to generate actionable insights about your customer’s behavior. However, the success or failure of your customer satisfaction survey campaigns depends on your execution. Don’t forget to always thank your customers for their feedback, even when it’s not positive!

About the author: Vipin Nayar is the founder of Aviv Digital, an institute that offers digital marketing courses in kochi. He’s a Social Media, SEO & SEM expert with over nine years’ experience in Digital marketing. He keeps himself updated about all the latest trends in the world of Digital Marketing and shares his knowledge with us through his blogs and articles.

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Marketing Manager of Mageplaza. Summer is attracted by new things. She loves writing, travelling and photography. Perceives herself as a part-time gymmer and a full-time dream chaser.
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