Customer satisfaction surveys: Why you need them

Customer satisfaction surveys are the leading indicator of consumer repurchase intentions. Learn more about how you can formulate your CSAT surveys in this article.

With a customer satisfaction survey, you can get a better customer perspective. You’ll get specific product or service information and identify their needs.

Monitoring customer satisfaction and making efforts to actually improve it offers tangible benefits to your organization. Analyzing your customer satisfaction can help you understand your clients’ choices and preferences, and how buying patterns arise from their choices. 

As you use customer satisfaction surveys or CSATs to directly get feedback from them, you’ll build trust as they see their feedback is valued. With honest feedback, you can work on the areas that need improvement to bridge the gaps and improve customer retention.

With a customer satisfaction survey, you can get a better customer perspective. You’ll get specific product or service information and identify their needs. Customer satisfaction surveys create a sincere attempt and sense of care for your customers’ opinion, that’s why you only want to offer them the best services. 

Read on to discover the importance of customer satisfaction and how you can measure it with customer satisfaction surveys.

Why is customer satisfaction so important?

Customer satisfaction is a vital component in every business. It provides the numbers and data needed to measure and improve a business performance in line with the customers’ perspective. 

A customer satisfaction survey is the leading indicator of consumer repurchase intentions as well as customer loyalty. With the results of this particular survey in hand, marketers can understand the customers’ shopping preferences. 

At the same time, it also shows initial warning signs that a customer is unhappy and potentially at risk of leaving. The feedback that your brand might get from customers can give you a competitive advantage if you can successfully work on them.

Read on to discover how you can measure customer satisfaction with the use of surveys in the following section.

What is a customer satisfaction survey (CSAT)?

Customer satisfaction surveys measure one’s customer’s attitude towards a company’s products and services. A CSAT survey is often created with items of questionnaire templates, sent out to clients after having an interaction with your brand.

Your customers will answer the questions based on scores and ratings. It’s also a perfect opportunity for you to ask for their insights about your services. Organizations use multiple data to determine customer satisfaction.

Apart from CSAT surveys, they can also use Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Effort Score (CES), or Average Holding Time (AHT). These variables are used to provide decision-makers with comprehensive data based on the survey results.

How to formulate a customer satisfaction survey

Determining how customers’ level of satisfaction is achieved by asking relevant questions through CSAT.

You can use the following variables and questions below in formulating your customer satisfaction survey:

Customer satisfaction questions

Asking the right questions in your customer satisfaction survey is key to ensure you get relevant feedback. You may lose out on important insights if you ask incorrect questions.

Some of the areas you should cover in your customer satisfaction survey questionnaire could be:

  • The quality of your product and services;
  • Troubleshooting experience with your support; or
  • How the overall customer support was given

Possible answers in determining customer satisfaction

Upon constructing your customer satisfaction survey, you also have to provide possible answer variants for the determination of CSAT.

You can use a rating scale from very satisfied to very unsatisfied that includes the following rates:

  • Very satisfied, as the highest
  • Satisfied
  • Neutral
  • Unsatisfied
  • Very unsatisfied, as the lowest

As you send in your CSAT, they should be designed simply and clearly to achieve the most relevant and favorable response rate.

Numerical ratings in customer satisfaction survey

Apart from satisfied or unsatisfied ratings, you can also use numerical ratings. Another way to measure CSAT uses a 10-digit scale, with 1 being the worst and 10 being the highest.

Just like the use of the net promoter score, you can also use the CSAT survey to measure the potential of your customers to refer your company’s products and services to their friends and relatives.

Graphical answers in answering customer satisfaction survey

Some customers like graphical answers better than having to rate them if satisfactory or not. That’s why some companies opt to use graphical answers like smileys, thumbs up or thumbs down, or a check and a cross mark in their customer satisfaction surveys.

These simple symbols present a friendly, exciting, and refreshing way to show how your clients actually feel towards your brand. 

Effectiveness of CSAT surveys

An increased percentage of customer satisfaction directly translates into more sales and increased customer retention. Monitoring your customer satisfaction is necessary to achieve this boost. 

The indispensable role of customer satisfaction surveys plays an important role in this area of your business.

If your clients had a great experience using your products or services, or if there’s something they didn’t like, it’s your job to work on those gaps. To effectively do this, you have to ensure that all of your customer’s feedback is valued. The effectiveness of CSAT surveys will be beneficial to both your brand and your clients if they are monitored accurately and worked on by your team. This is to ensure that your organization is prepared to deliver the best customer experience.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Picture of Jewel Tirona

Jewel Tirona

The Ultimate Guide to Elevating Your Customer Experience
Discover how the powerful blend of AI and human expertise revolutionizes engagement, boosts revenue, and keeps you steps ahead of the competition.
The Ultimate Guide to Elevating Your Customer Experience
Discover how the powerful blend of AI and human expertise revolutionizes engagement, boosts revenue, and keeps you steps ahead of the competition. Download it now!
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