Six reasons to focus on customer satisfaction

Forget price and product wars, getting customer satisfaction right has become the key differentiator in today’s increasingly competitive market. It’s a well-known business adage that it’s cheaper to retain customers than it is to acquire news ones, and customer satisfaction is precisely what drives this truism. Slashed prices won’t reduce customer churn or negative word of mouth when the service that accompanies them is in the gutters.

Customer satisfaction on the other hand is a leading indicator of loyalty and repurchase potential. Our research and experience reveals that this is one metric business leaders cannot ignore. Measuring customer satisfaction enables businesses to give their customers a voice, which in turn allows you to discover what is really going on with your processes, people and technology.

If you want to manage and improve growth within your business, you should be looking outward and using customer satisfaction as a measure of how your products or services are meeting or failing a customer’s expectation. When you measure customer satisfaction and act on the insight obtained, there is no reason your company won’t start surpassing expectations.

Here are six reasons why customer satisfaction is so important:

1. It’s more expensive not to measure customer satisfaction

Let’s face it, marketing is expensive. Without it, your company would disappear in the ocean of competition out there. But it costs five times more to reach and acquire new customers than it does to retain the relationships you have already established. And this is true of both B2B and B2C businesses.

2. Customer satisfaction reduces churn

Customer churn is as costly as marketing to new customers. Why go to the effort of closing a deal with a customer, only to find out that once the real work is underway, your customers have walked because their expectations have not been met. You need to know exactly when different problems arise and what your customers really feel about your service as a result.

3.Happy customers are your brand ambassadors

Compounding negative word of mouth, particularly in industries where people and businesses are connected and they talk, can sink your business. Focusing on customer satisfaction means your staff will be able to offer outstanding service with the aim of exceeding expectations. You have to earn your customers’ testimonials and when you do, you’ll attract more customers without any extra effort on your part.

4. Customer satisfaction is an industry benchmark

Perceptions may as well be facts. Your customers will defect to your competitors based on their perceived value of both your services and those of your competitors. If the experience created by a competing company appears more appealing, you are already losing the battle. Tracking customer satisfaction and then benchmarking it against other industry players will show you stack up against the rest.

5. Customer satisfaction is the competitive differentiator

What is the make or break factor that causes you to leave a service provider? The only businesses that succeed in today’s cut-throat markets are those that make customer satisfaction a strategic element in their business objectives. Whether you’re in banking, retail, insurance or any other industry, prices are all fairly standardised, and they can’t get much lower. It’s all too easy to replicate product specs and wrap them in different brand packaging. The only way to beat back the rest, as I introduced this discussion, is through creating an exceptional customer experience.

6. Employees and customers are intrinsically linked

“Take care of your people and they will take care of your customers.” The importance of employees delivering customer satisfaction cannot be underestimated. Without satisfied employees, there is no customer satisfaction. Employee morale, productivity and loyalty leads to happy customers. Also, by making customer satisfaction a common goal across your company, you can help your employees build an understanding of how the company operates from the customers’ perspective.

Smoke Customer Care Solutions makes it easy for you to track customer satisfaction. Contact us to discuss your company’s needs and how we can tailor the right solution for you.