October 19, 2023
“A business that cannot win the loyalty of customers is a business that cannot succeed in the long-term. It’s that simple. In this age of rapidly changing customer expectations and a crowded market of competing companies, every business leader should prioritise customer experience (CX) as a key performance indicator.” - Forbes.
Creating a CX Strategy
Creating or refining a CX strategy is an ideal place to begin when looking to improve overall customer satisfaction. According to McKinsey, organisations can create win-win scenarios where better experiences produce economic value and satisfied customers by identifying the behaviours that contribute to positive financial outcomes. So, to identify those behaviours, it is vital first to understand your customers: who they are, what they want, their desired channels to communicate with your brand and their journey from first connection to purchase.
The key to customer retention, higher levels of customer satisfaction, and, in return, repeat business falls within the latter stages of your CX strategy. Understanding your customers, touchpoints, and the process from initial brand connection to sale is part one; part two is where we look at measurement, analysis, and improvement, and the magic happens! According to HBR, a common way to improve the customer experience is to share and learn from customer feedback. However, customer feedback is often only shared with a subset of employees. When shared more broadly with all employees, feedback can fuel better customer experiences. But first, you must create opportunities for your customers to share feedback.
Effectively Utilising CSAT To Improve CX
CSAT, Customer Satisfaction, is a KPI used to measure customers' satisfaction with your products, services and interactions. A CSAT survey typically utilises a series of quantitative questions requiring customers to rate their overall satisfaction within crucial areas of the customer journey.
Zendesk states that CSAT scores are important because customer service teams can analyse them and gather critical insights that substantially impact customer experiences without exerting much effort. This CX metric can help businesses:
Rewinding to your CX strategy and looking back at the customer and their journey allows you to form the basis of communicative channels to publish your CSAT survey. CSAT surveys don’t have to be within an email or live chat; using phone systems by entering scores on the keypad, through a text (SMS) service, or through social channels yields strong response rates. SaaSy ensures CSAT surveys are enabled across all communicative channels to maximise responses and allow for data collection regardless of the medium chosen by the customer. It is ideal to set realistic and specific CSAT goals aligned with your overall mission and ensure customers’ needs are continually met.
Harnessing CSAT Data For Continual Improvement
It isn’t enough to obtain CSAT results without ensuring CSAT data sets are handled and mined when looking at continual business improvements. For organisations to lead from a customer-centric position, McKinsey states that businesses increasingly need a comprehensive view of the customer journey and the ability to obtain deep, granular insight into what drives customer experience. Understanding CSAT scores within all areas of the business allows leadership to:
According to Zendesk, customer satisfaction is important because it illustrates whether your customer base likes what you’re doing. Research shows that high satisfaction leads to greater customer retention, higher lifetime value, and a more substantial brand reputation. Understanding, analysing and strategising based on customer results should form the basis of your CX strategy to allow customer retention, high levels of customer satisfaction and continual business growth.
If you’re looking to implement CSAT for the first time or want to optimise your existing CSAT collection methods, get in touch with us today and speak to one of our experts!
