It is a well known fact that it takes 7x the cost to acquire new customers. Working on increasing current satisfaction levels, retention rates and reducing churn risk will be a better approach. Customers make or break a business. So we highly recommend revisiting your customer satisfaction strategies to keep this approach fresh and applicable in the current market. In this blog, we share 8 techniques businesses can apply to high satisfaction rates and increase brand loyalty.

How can you measure customer satisfaction?

There are standardized metrics to measure satisfaction levels. These metrics are net promoter score or NPS, CSAT surveys or customer satisfaction score, customer effort score or CES. Marketing professionals can collect this data using customer surveys at various touchpoints. For example, after a call with a disgruntled consumer, the customer support team can share a CES feedback survey. The CES survey identifies the amount of effort the caller had to take to obtain a resolution to their problem. The results from these metrics give a good insight on overall customer satisfaction. 

Obtain High Customer Satisfaction in 2024: 9 Tips

Remember, improving customer satisfaction is not a one-time process. It is a major part of any CX protocol. Depending on industry type and product usage, it is a continuous process across a customer journey.

Let us look at them at a glance:

1. Offer omnichannel assistance and approach.
2. Welcome negative customer feedback.
3. Ask for feedback after interactive touchpoints.
4. Use AI and manual assistance.
5. Track customer health score and detect churn.
6. Monitor to manage satisfaction metrics.
7. Offer real time assistance to people.
8. Share feedback with internal teams and have systems.
9. Personalize user experience based on ICP.

Here are the 9 tips you might want to check out for 2024 business upgrades.

1. People appreciate multichannel approach to assistance

Your user base can be spread across the globe who might be using multiple applications. So how do you reach out to them? Welcome a full-fledged omnichannel customer experience and attend to unhappy and happy customers across borders. This is where you can use phone calls, emails, chatbots or social media platforms to reach out to your consumer base. Share customer feedback surveys via messenger applications such as Facebook messenger survey, WhatsApp survey, website chatbots and AMP emails. You can get a high response rate and connect with people on various platforms using in-moment and omnichannel response collection strategies.

2. Welcome negative reviews to prevent future bad experiences

As per data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), the customer satisfaction level continues to decline while the consumer sentiment is at its lowest in more than two decades. Despite disgruntled consumers, welcome negative feedback while not taking it personally.

Companies that take complaints more seriously develop more competitive products and services for a tough market. Negative reviews a boon in disguise. It can help companies create stronger customer loyalty protocols and build a robust team to handle upset user base to increase brand advocacy. Working on a customer-centric role to offer seamless experience is a key metric of any business success. Tech giants such as Apple reaches out to detractors, closes the feedback loop and makes an extra $25 million in return.

3. Actively seek feedback after interactions and transactions

Use CX tools to create a pre-designed survey for your customers and share it across distribution channels. Place the surveys at points after brand-user interactions. Example, you can share a CES survey during a post-purchase phase. Here you can learn if the person has had to exert maximum effort to make a purchase. You can share instant in-app feedback surveys after closing a complaint ticket. This could be a star-rating based customer satisfaction survey based on how efficiently you can sort a client issue. The main aim is also to collect both qualitative and quantitative survey feedback. Along with numerical ratings, you can conduct customer sentiment analysis and find out how people really feel. Integrate your software with CX dashboards to get all customer data in one place.

4.Use the best of both worlds- human touch and an AI assistance

When your user base is massive, it becomes difficult to handle and process complex information. This can increase wait times and cause more frustration among your consumer base. You can train AI models to offer instant solutions to common problems to clear the backlog. This way, you can have processes in place to streamline the support team functions. Allocate resources in areas that need manual intervention such as a complex problem or people who want to speak to human representatives for further assistance. AI chatbots can offer resolutions round the clock in places where human assistance may not always be possible or feasible. Customer expectations can get demanding. Using the best of both artificial intelligence and human efforts can help internal processes work efficiently.

5. Keep a track of customer health scores and churn risk

The customer health score (CHS) is a metric used by SaaS companies to detect if a person is at a high churn risk or makes for a prime candidate for upselling. CHS score will assess the health of your relationship with the customer. A person that is at a high risk of churn will need immediate assistance. They could have been an upset consumer, or might have left a negative feedback on websites or third party review portals. The CHS metric helps you monitor the progress of a customer success programe. User satisfaction levels highly depend on product-usage satisfaction and post sales service. The CHS score will know what to measure, how many support tickets are pending, support efforts for resolution and impact of the company’s products on the user.

6. Focus on measuring, monitoring and managing customer satisfaction metrics

Larger companies have a customer experience manager or a CXM leader that will focus on monitoring, managing and measuring satisfaction metrics. Their role is to understand consumer pain points, find out loopholes and disconnects in the customer journey. Every industry (especially finance, automobile, electronic goods) track their detailed user journey. They aim to capture periodic feedback, understand their friction points and maintain customer relationships. The role of a CX leader is to drive satisfaction, loyalty and strategize on how to provide exceptional customer experience at sensitive touchpoints.

7. New age, tech-savvy consumers demand real time assistance

Social media can make or break a brand’s online reputation. When people share the social status of their experience, they expect faster responses. Thanks to the internet, the marketing team has to be on their toes to offer faster resolutions for bad customer experiences, close feedback loops, and reduce long wait times on phone support calls. Faster resolution time is a great way to make people happy, have repeat purchases and observe a greater customer retention on the businesses’ timeline. It is also important to get feedback after assistance protocols. Share feedback surveys via Facebook messenger surveys, WhatsApp surveys or website chatbots. This is a good way to understand if the customer support efforts could solve a problem successfully.

8. Share feedback with internal teams and have measurable customer satisfaction benchmarks

Assess and share survey feedback, scores and responses with your internal teams. This can help you understand the impact of their work on your consumer base. Use eNPS surveys to gauge the satisfaction levels of your employees. Apple frequently shares eNPS with their team members to keep morale high. Happy employees in return, offer memorable customer service to their patrons.

Most organisations have an internal checking process known as balanced score card. The balanced scorecard approaches performance into four major segments- financial analysis, customer analysis, internal business process and employee satisfaction systems. This scorecard can have all the important metrics together in a single report. It will assess product development, competitive standing in the market, employee retention and satisfaction which will lead to customer satisfaction and retention.

9. Personalize user experience for the ideal customer persona

People appreciate personalized user experience since customer journeys are not the same for all. This encourages repeat customers which bring in business growth. Determine your ideal customer persona (ICP) and identify these metrics- pain points, needs and preferences, shopping behaviours and other demographic characteristics. Use these details to provide personalized assistance and offers based on past interactions and shopping experiences. For example, a person might leave their ecommerce cart empty. Considering website cookies, they could receive an email of related items that could be of interest to them. Retargeting based on personalized recommendations is often a good idea. 

Importance of Customer Satisfaction for CX

The main aim of any CX protocol is to keep the consumer base happy, have repeat business and solve pain points for every user for a high customer lifetime value. Additionally, focusing on (employee experience) EX can greatly enhance CX metrics. Use every feedback, response and convert customer data into actionable insights. Collect crucial ratings from your net promoter score and customer satisfaction data scores. Use this information to detect trends, patterns and bridge any gaps that may hamper high customer satisfaction levels. Gather post purchase feedback via interactive survey and strive to offer great customer service each time.

If you’re looking to identify detractors from your satisfied customer base, consider using Merren’s CX tools. Capture all your data on the Merren CX dashboard and get a comprehensive overview of every response collected.