How happy are your customers? If you don't
know the answer to that question then it might be time for some additional
research. The best way to expand your company is to make sure you're giving
your customers what they want.
The only way to find that out is to gauge
their level of satisfaction. Professor Scott Smith, the co-founder of Qualtrics,
has come up with a simple and direct approach to determining customer
satisfaction.
Here are the four fundamental measurements
he suggests you apply to your business:
Perceived
Quality
You can ask your customers to fill out a
survey card and leave it at your store or answer a quick online survey. Either
way, the first question to ask is a variation on the theme of "How was
your experience with our company?" Right off the bat you're going to know
how the customer feels especially if you ascribe some sort of rating like a
scale of 1 to 10 or adverbs like "great, good, so-so or bad." This
will become your baseline for customer satisfaction.
The
Loyalty Measurement
Every business depends on loyal customers
coming back to make additional purchases. The hope is that those customers will
take the next step and recommend that company to someone else. With the loyalty
measurement you'll be asking, "Would you recommend our company?" It's
a yes or no question that you can break down to degrees such as "very
likely, somewhat likely, etc." It's a terrific snapshot to judge how many referrals
your customers can bring in. That might inspire you to take it a step further
with some sort of incentive program.
Attribution
Satisfaction
These are the survey questions you'll be
asking that get into the specific of a particular product. In other words, you
want to find out what attracted a customer to that product. Was it the price?
Availability of sizes? Ease of shipping? Colour? There could be many factors
that went into the purchase. Finding those out will help support future product
launches and sales campaigns.
Intention
to Repurchase
There are some products that are geared to
be bought only once while others require frequent repurchasing. Either way, you
want to know if your customer was happy enough with your business that they
would do it all over again. A customer with a positive shopping experience is
more likely to buy that product again, perhaps as a gift. At the very least
they'll be recommending your company to others.
Take note that all the positive information
you gather in these types of surveys can be used in your own marketing campaigns.
If you can have a 100% customer approval rating why wouldn't you share that
with the world?
Of course, you won't know any of this
unless you ask!
