Every businessman has the hope of maximizing returns, something that can be easily achieved by just keeping customers satisfied. It is normal that when your customers are satisfied with what they get, they will come for more. Actually, a survey reveals that 93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases from brands offering satisfactory services.
While there are many ways to keep such excellent services, one of the effective yet highly neglected customer loyalty strategies is satisfaction surveys. It involves a set of questions that will help you understand your customers much better. You will now know what to maintain and what needs improvement to keep you ahead of the competition. In return, you can keep existing customers closer and bring new ones with ease. Read on to learn how customer satisfaction surveys have contributed to improving loyalty.
Importance of Feedback in Customer Service
Surveys are a win-win situation wherein businesses will get to understand customers better, while consumers can express their needs, frustrations, and expectations. This feedback is what a brand needs to understand the pain points of its customers and try to improve in the areas that need a change. It is an opportunity for businesses to refine their approach and build concrete strategies for customer loyalty. These below-mentioned are key reasons that say why not to overlook the importance of conducting surveys:
Identify and Fill Serve Gaps: Customers will most likely identify areas they like about your company and the weaknesses you should try to work on during surveys. For instance, assume that you are running a call center studio. Some of the probable problems that may be identified in such surveys include long periods of waiting before one’s issue is resolved. Statistics show that 28% of calls do not get resolution on the very first call but will have to make a couple of problems that may be identified, which decreases the level of their satisfaction by about 30%. Knowing this gap will let you integrate solutions, including AI-driven IVR to boost customer satisfaction.
Improve Retention: Surveys make customers feel their opinions count and valued. They feel they are not just there to help you make sales; they are part of your company. Customers are likely to remain in a brand where their opinions count and where the owners are working hard to ensure satisfaction. Therefore, surveys are an effective method of churn reduction and increasing lifetime value.
Enhance Brand Image: A responsive company will receive accolades as opposed to a brand that does not care about its consumers’ needs. Satisfaction surveys done show devotion to consumer needs, which fortifies trust and credence.
Create New Ideas: Satisfaction surveys provide insight into your customers’ views about your products or services. Through these experiences, you can learn the type of services they like most and optimize them. For instance, if customers complain of a limited product line, you may use that to expand the line. Before that, have another survey question asking what they would love to see you add to the catalog. Such details will keep you ahead of competitors while helping you boost returns.
Key Elements of an Effective Survey
Designing a customer satisfaction survey that drives actionable insights requires strategic design and execution. Below are the pillars of an impactful survey, supported by real-world applications and the survey tools for call centers that streamline the process:
Clear Objectives and Strategic Design
Define goals: For example, you may use post-interaction surveys to evaluate first-call resolutions. Asking customers if the interaction was helpful and areas, where they would want you to improve, will certainly help you identify and solve their pain points. Mix question types for depth:
- Quantitative data: These questions are something like, “How satisfied were you with today’s service?”, or leverage Net Promoter Score (NPS) to measure loyalty.
- Qualitative insights: These are for open-ended questions like, “What could we improve?” to capture nuanced feedback.
With survey tools for call centers, you can generate satisfaction surveys with an automatic outgoing call after ending a call. Customers press the buttons for their preferred questions and you turn the results into a report that you use to improve operations.
Relevance and Brevity
The questions should be concise while directly addressing the target customer. The right questions depend on the kind of services you offer. For instance, survey questions for a call center cannot be similar to a restaurant. Also, the questions directed to a person after a delayed response complaint are different from what you would ask a customer whose orders were delayed. Don’t be too lazy to craft surveys that match the intended use.
Personalization and Closing the Loop
Feedback without action erodes trust. For example, suppose you run an accommodation business. Any guests whose ratings remain below 3 stars should receive personalized emails from managers offering discounts on future bookings. This “close the loop” tactic is likely to reduce negative reviews.
Accessibility and Multichannel Distribution
Meet customers where they are. Bank of America embeds SMS surveys after call center interactions, achieving a high response rate due to convenience. Similarly, Shopify uses in-app pop-up surveys and post-support chats. Ensure surveys are mobile-friendly and concise.
How Can Surveys Improve Customer Loyalty?
Only 1 out of 26 unsatisfied customers complain after a bad experience. The remaining 25 never give you any chance to change the problem at hand and walk away from your brand. It is then you realize that, too late, several of your esteemed customers have flowed to the opponent’s side. The customer satisfaction survey is the clue to long-term relationships and more retention. When you act promptly on feedback, it shows that you care and are willing to go the extra mile to make your customers happy. Surveys also allow you to tailor personalized interactions and support to keep customers closer. Furthermore, you can leverage the responses of the survey for the better training of customer support agents, adjustment of products, and creation of new offerings and incentives that will keep customers coming back for more, thus passing positive word-of-mouth.
Now that you understand the value of feedback in customer service, do not wait any longer to get started with surveys to understand your customers better. Book a demo to explore the most suitable survey tools for call centers, depending on your needs.
FAQs
Why do satisfaction surveys matter?
The customer satisfaction survey is one of the proficient ways to let businesses know their clients better. This will allow the businesses to realize what keeps customers hooked onto their services/products and what turns them off.
How do customer satisfaction surveys boost loyalty?
When businesses understand what customers love and what turns them off, they can address the areas that need improvement. This step keeps customers satisfied and also makes them feel valued, increasing the chances of repeat business.
How often should companies do the surveys?
While there is no set time for the surveys, the best is to do it several times a year. This approach keeps engagement ongoing and lowers the churn rate.
