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Assess Satisfaction to Retain Customers

Guest post by: Jesse Hopps

Article Overview: Maintaining prices and retaining customers in competitive markets depends heavily on your ability to effectively service your accounts. Proactive organizations work with customers to identify their strengths and weaknesses to better serve their market. Use Demand Metric’s very concise Customer to benchmark current satisfaction levels, and improve these metrics over time.

Assess Satisfaction to Retain Customers

Assess Satisfaction to Retain Customers Maintaining prices and retaining customers in competitive markets depends heavily on your ability to effectively service your accounts. Proactive organizations work with customers to identify their strengths and weaknesses to better serve their market. Use Demand Metric's very concise Customer to benchmark current satisfaction levels, and improve these metrics over time.

What are the Key Areas to Measure?

• Buying Process -getting customer feedback on your buying process will help you support sales more effectively, and identify any possible issues.
• Value Proposition- learning how your value proposition is perceived is critical in determining the effectiveness of your branding & communications strategy. Additionally, reduce risk by identifying any customers who are not getting good value for money.
• Products/Services- gather metrics on the effectiveness and quality of your products to close the Product Development loop. Ask additional qualitative questions that can provide insight into what the market is demanding.
• Strategic Direction- measure the perception of your customers on your position as a market leader and innovative organization. Use this data to demonstrate how effective you are at communicating corporate strategy.
• Customer Service & Support- gauge the responsiveness and courtesy of your service department to ensure there are no unhappy customers with outstanding issues who may be at risk.
• Website/Customer Portal- determine if your website or portal is providing a pleasant experience or if additional resources need to be added.
• Brand Preference- this area provides an opportunity to bottom-line customers. Find out who are your advocates and dissatisfied customers.

Action Plan:

1. Discuss with Senior Management- table this idea during a management meeting to see if there are any other managers who agree that this type of data would be helpful. In particular, speak with leaders from the Sales, Customer Service, or Professional Services departments.
2. Determine Timing- some industries are seasonal, so make sure that you time your survey initiative appropriately. Another alternative is to integrate this survey into your renewal or customer exit processes.
3. Customize a Survey- use Demand Metric's downloadable Customer Satisfaction Survey Template as a starting point.
4. Communicate with Staff- discuss how this initiative will help the business grow and retain customer s. Be sure to communicate how the results of these surveys will be measured and used to identify any performance issues.
5. Distribute to Customers- once you have decided what the most appropriate timing is for a customer survey, distribute them accordingly. When sending out your survey, speak to the benefits that your customers will see, including: better service & support, more valued products, etc.
6. Gather Results & Analyze- after you have collected the survey results, analyze them to find any flight risk accounts, or other potential issues. Aggregate the data into averages to benchmark your current level of performance, which you can use as a measuring stick for next time.
7. Report to Senior Management- compile a report that can be delivered to Senior Management highlighting the key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
8. Integrate Feedback- based on your report, have a discussion to prioritize the action items that need be addressed first, and who will take them on.

Bottom-line:

Ignoring the 'voice of the customer' is not how world-class companies operate. To keep retention levels high, define a customer feedback process that provides both quantitative and qualitative results.

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Article Tags: competitive markets, proactive organizations, satisfaction levels, strengths and weaknesses



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