Looking for ways to improve customer satisfaction?
Customer satisfaction directly impacts the growth of your business. Lower customer satisfaction levels lead to lower retention rates, which in turn affect the revenue you generate.
Companies have a hard time satisfying their increasingly demanding customers. Most customers expect to be fully satisfied by the product or service they use.
It’s never been more important to ensure that your customers are happy and satisfied. A truly happy customer spends at least three times more money on a brand than a “somewhat” happy one.
While conducting customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys helps you spot issues and pain points, you can do more to improve your customer’s overall experience with your product and company
Studies show that 91% of customers who had a bad experience won’t willingly do business with a company ever again.
In this article, we’ll look at 15 ways companies can improve customer satisfaction in today’s customer-centric landscape.
Offer Personalized Customer Service
73% of consumers prefer to do business with brands that use their personal information to make their experiences more relevant to them.
Surveys are a great way to collect your customers’ personal information. once you have their information, put it to use!
Use your customer’s name and refer to their personal information whenever you can.
Be sure to tailor your services and messages to your customers’ unique needs and preferences.
Provide Self-help Options
Most customers prefer resolving their issues themselves rather than having to talk to a customer support agent.
According to a study of 7,000 respondents, around 53% of people thought it was important to be able to resolve their problems by themselves.
You can offer your customers an in-depth, self-serve knowledge base (or help docs). You can also use FAQ sections to help them find answers to some frequently asked questions.
Set Clear Expectations
Are you in a position where you can really offer stellar customer service? If you can’t, you shouldn’t make that claim.
When you tell your visitors that you provide great customer service, you’ve probably set the expectation too high. Your customers will now expect a service that’s nothing less than perfect.
The solution is to tweak your website copy so your customers clearly know what to expect.
Provide Omnichannel Support
Are you reachable on multiple channels? Customers typically tend to use numerous channels.
And 64% of consumers expect you to offer them access to real-time support no matter what channel they use, according to research.
When you provide omnichannel support, you give your customers the ability to contact you on any channel that they are active on.
Act On Complaints
Complaints are a great way to know what your customers really need and serve them better.
You need to treat your customers’ complaints as an opportunity. Complaints can help you formulate new ideas and action steps to improve your product or service.
Listen to your customers’ complaints and fix their issues to build closer relationships with them.
Ask Your Customers for Feedback
You shouldn’t wait for your customers to leave you unsolicited feedback. Instead, you need to proactively seek out their feedback.
There’s a good chance most of your customers haven’t given you valuable insights that you could use to improve their experience.
Collect feedback across all touchpoints so you can improve the entire customer journey.
Offer Loyalty Programs
Know the one thing that keeps customers coming back? Loyalty incentives!
In fact, 81% of consumers are more likely to do business with a brand that offers a loyalty program.
Loyalty programs are a great way to show your customers that you value their commitment to your product or service.
Eliminate Wait Times
If customers will have to wait for a long time to hear back from you, they won’t hesitate to find someone who can provide them with what they need in a much shorter time.
When you have long wait times, you make it really hard for your customers to do business with you.
Your business needs to manage customer wait times effectively and possibly eliminate them altogether.
Respond on Social Media
Customers tend to seek help from a business on their social media channels. Probably because it’s quite convenient and easy for them to contact you this way.
But it’s also because they expect a faster response from you, not just that it’s more convenient and easy. According to a study by Hubspot, 72% of customers who complain on Twitter want a response from the company within an hour.
When you fail to provide them with a quicker response, they might complain about it to their friends and followers.
You can get someone on your team to focus on issues posted on different social media channels.
Offer a Straightforward Refund Policy
Do you know the one thing that makes a customer trust you more? A money-back guarantee!
Having one in place helps make your customer’s buying experience seem more risk-free.
But having a refund policy ain’t enough, you need to ensure that it’s easy for your customers to understand. Use simple words to describe your policy and avoid jargon at all costs.
Provide a Free Trial
A free trial allows potential customers to try out your product and see if it fits their unique needs.
It also helps eliminate the risk of buying a product before knowing whether it can actually help them solve their problem.
When you offer a free trial, don’t ask for their credit card details, give them the ability to sign up using their social media accounts, and give them access to as many features as you can.
Offer Free Return Shipping
Are you an online retailer who doesn’t offer customers free returns because you think it might get in the way of building a profitable business?
You need to rethink that decision! Offering free returns not only helps improve your customers’ satisfaction, but it also helps you sell more!
88% of consumers say free return shipping has a big influence on their buying decisions. And 67% of survey respondents say free returns encourage them to buy more online.
When you provide free return shipping, clearly convey the eligibility criteria to your customers.
Experiment with Discounts and Giveaways
Offering discounts and giveaways are another great way to improve customer satisfaction and get your customers to buy more often from you.
Merchants that offer an active discount code are 8 times more likely to make a sale, according to research by Shopify.
Make it easy for your first-time customers to find your discount codes on your website. If you offer a subscription-based service, you can experiment with giveaways and let customers win a free extra month of service.
Share Feedback Across All Departments
Feedback is only useful when the right people get to act on it.
You have to have a system that makes it simple for the right team to find and analyze your customer’s feedback.
A customer reported a bug or made a feature request? That kind of feedback is best addressed by your product team.
You can also ask your teams to block some time each week or month just to analyze and address customer feedback.
Reply to All Feedback
There are advantages to replying to all feedback, both positive and negative.
If the feedback is positive, you can capitalize on your customer’s positive experience and get a review, case study, or testimonial from them.
Is the feedback negative? Then it’s a chance to make improvements to your product and build stronger relationships with your customers.
Get one of the higher-ups to respond to your customers’ negative feedback. Apparently, 78% of consumers say they feel a brand cares more about them if the brand’s management team responds to their reviews.
Final Thoughts
Customer satisfaction is crucial for the growth of your business. Put the above tips to use and the results will soon follow.
Here are some articles to help you learn more about customer satisfaction:
How To Create Customer Satisfaction Survey Questions In 2021
21 Effective Customer Satisfaction Questions to Ask Your Customers
Customer Satisfaction Guarantee: The Dos & Don’ts With Examples
8 Customer Satisfaction Metrics For 2021
6 Ways to Measure Customer Satisfaction like a Pro!
Got any questions on improving your customers’ satisfaction? Any interesting tips or techniques you use to improve customer satisfaction? Let us know about them in the comment section below.
Looking to create customer satisfaction surveys that reveal what your customers truly think about your product? Feel free to check out SurveySparrow.
