Your customers are one of your business’ biggest assets, but are you making sure they’re satisfied with the products and services your company is providing? If you aren’t, you should be. Satisfied customers keep coming back to your business and draw others in. Unsatisfied customers do just the opposite. So you need to make sure that your customers are happy.
Use the Net Promoter Score
First, you can track customer satisfaction through a relatively new business metric called the Net Promoter Score or NPS. This tool asks your customers how likely they are to recommend the products or services they purchase through your company. Customers answer on a scale of one through ten, and the tool then computes your score. This gives you an overall idea of how satisfied your customers are, for satisfied customers are willing to tell their friends and family about their good experiences with your business.
Track Sales
You can also get an idea of customer satisfaction by tracking your sales. Invest in software that records your sales, the products or services sold and the customers sold to. This program will likely offer reports that let you check whether your customers are returning or not. Returning customers are most likely satisfied customers, and if you notice many of them, you can be pretty sure that things are going well in this area. If, however, you notice plenty of new customers but not many returning ones, you might have a problem.
Get Feedback
Data from your Net Promoter Score and sales tracking can only get you so far. You need to actually hear from your customers to find out exactly why they are or are not satisfied with your company. So get plenty of feedback. You might offer surveys by email or on your website. You could hand out survey postcards in your store or office. Even put up a suggestion box, an actual one in your store or office and a virtual one on your website.
Encourage your customers to speak up and tell you what they like and don’t like about your business. Then be ready to accept what you hear, learn from it and adjust as needed. Getting customer feedback can actually be a little scary and disheartening at times, but it’s better to know than not so that you can make things right.
Maintain Social Media
Your social media sites offer another prime platform for customer feedback, so maintain them consistently. Along with posting news about promotions and sales, keep track of user comments. These will be a great source of feedback. You’ll probably notice plenty of positive responses to your posts, but there might be negative ones as well. Don’t overlook these. Of course, social media always has its trolls, but there could be real customers who aren’t happy for one reason or another. Reach out to these folks privately to talk about the problem and to make things right if you can.
Talk, Listen and Change
Above all, no matter how you do it, talk to your customers. Whether it’s by email, online or in person, give them the opportunity to express themselves. Then truly listen to them. Accept compliments with grace, and don’t be easily offended by negative comments. They might have some substance to them. No business is perfect.
Then gather up all your customer feedback, and use it to change your company for the better. If people are complaining about a particular product, for instance, try it yourself, and discontinue it if you aren’t satisfied. If they don’t like your website, give it an upgrade. If they’re unhappy with the speed of your service, develop strategies to improve. And always let your customers know that what they say counts to you.
Tracking customer satisfaction can be tricky, but it is important if you’re going to build the best business you possibly can. You need to hold onto your customers and keep them coming back, so listen to them closely, and treat them right.
