“A satisfied customer is one who will continue to buy from you, seldom shop around, refer other customers and in general be a superstar advocate for your business”. – Gregory Ciotti
Enough said! The reasons mentioned in the quote are enough to understand the importance of customer satisfaction. In the current day and age and the changing ‘moods’ of customers, customer satisfaction has gone beyond just being a marketing terminology and now is the difference between a company’s success or failure to retain a customer. The importance of customer satisfaction has got elevated even more now as it provides companies with a cadent that is supremely useful in managing, enhancing and taking their business to new heights. When companies pay close attention to the importance of customer satisfaction, the results are astounding and prove that even little efforts go a long way in improving customer service and keeping customers happy.
Let us enlist for you why your company must understand the importance of customer satisfaction. Of course, you could find many more reasons of your own based on your customer make-up, industry and past experiences.
– Knowing the levels of customer satisfaction is the ideal way to understand whether a customer will buy again and also whether they would be willing to be your company’s brand ambassadors. Gauging customer reactions to satisfaction on a rating scale of 1-10 is a great way to know where your company’s offerings and customer service stands. Studies have indicated that customers providing a rating of 7 or more are satisfied and it would be safe to assume that they would remain with you and provide repeat business. The ones that provide 9 or 10 will be your possible brand ambassadors and it is crucial to leverage this strength immediately and also focus on the importance of keeping this rating steady or upward bound. Anything below 7 is your danger level – the customer is most probably dissatisfied and the first opportunity provided by competition will have them going in their direction. Don’t undermine the importance of customer satisfaction or the lack of it – take action urgently and pay extra attention to these customers to understand why they don’t feel so upbeat about your company. Customer satisfaction takes on so much importance as it provides clear insights in to the ‘mind’ of your customers and provides warning signals too. It’s always better for companies to be in a pro-active mode rather than reacting when things go out of control.
– The importance of customer satisfaction also comes from the fact that it is a crucial distinction and demarcation of the service and products of a company. In the highly competitive marketplace of today where existing and start-up businesses are competing for the same customers, knowing whether you are pleasing and satisfying the customers is a distinct advantage. Understanding the importance of customer satisfaction and making it a crucial element in the customer related strategy, is one of the methods of standing head and shoulders above the other market players. The fact is that there are many companies offering similar and even exactly the same products and unless there is some key differentiation being offered by your company, what will make customers buy from you and not the next company. The only way to know where your customer satisfaction levels stand – the higher the levels the more likely that these customers will attract more business for you through brand advocacy. It would also be difficult for competition to sway these customers towards buying from them. Creating consistently great customer experiences make for highly satisfied customers and will give your company that distinct advantage that is so vital in the current market scenario. Customer satisfaction not only helps to understand how your existing customers feel about you but also their references bring potential customers to you without apprehension.
– Anyone in business knows that attracting new customers is a much harder and rigorous process than keeping the ones they already have. The main reason that customers leave, according to a report, is shoddy customer service. Also disregard for the importance of customer service can lead to customer churn and cause companies to falter, sometimes irreversibly. By understanding where your company stands on the customer satisfaction scale, it is possible to pro-actively put in place processes, procedures and strategies that will help track it and also enhance its levels. Place more emphasis on exceeding customer expectations till customer satisfaction reaches the point of customer delight and then use the successful initiatives to improve these levels further.
– The importance of customer satisfaction is displayed also in the fact that higher levels generate greater revenue for a company. If a company works towards increasing the value a customer finds in being associated with them, the satisfaction levels will be higher and a completely satisfied customer will contribute at least two and a half times more revenue than a customer whose satisfaction levels are on the lower end of the scale. Your company must consistently focus on elevating the customer satisfaction levels such that customers remained ‘glued’ to your company without worrying about competitors enticements.
– When customers are happy they are willing to spread a good word about your company. However, the probability of them doing this is lesser than if they were displeased. An unhappy customer will surely tell at least 10-15 people about their unpleasant experience and would also post these negative comments over social media. So much negative word of mouth can never be good for any business and will severely tarnish a company’s reputation. The importance of customer satisfaction also comes to the fore when one customer pulls away other customers through their comments. This can snowball and become an unmanageable problem for a company very soon. To know if there are any changes in customer satisfaction levels companies must necessarily track and monitor these levels. Fixing minor problems would be much easier than trying to stop customers from deflecting because your company ignored the warning signals. There are many ways to ‘educate’ customers as to your company’s focus on customer service – informative and well-articulated blogs on the site, emails with special promotions and discount features, personalized service and interesting and well-timed customer surveys.
Is your company actively measuring customer happiness and do you understand the importance of customer satisfaction? Research has found that if there is one customer complaint, there are at least 26 others who are not complaining but falling in the dangerous ‘silent customer’ category. They will not tell you how they feel and then what seems like sudden, they would have deflected to competition. This is an alarming and a tough situation to be in but companies that don’t monitor customer satisfaction would have potentially invited this problem. Statistics show that around 96% of unhappy customers leave without complaining and also never come back. Unless customers tell you what’s bothering them how will you stop them from leaving and unless your company is monitoring the customer satisfaction levels, they would never know that a customer is not happy or even on the verge of leaving.
No company is large enough or secure enough to ignore the importance of customer satisfaction for their business. As mentioned it is the top most indicator of customer happiness, unhappy customers, losing customers and customer loyalty and a way to stay ahead of competition by receiving more business through existing customers and attracting new customers. Businesses must work towards maintaining a connection with their customers and regularly do things to please them since that is now the only way to make the new ‘breed of customers’ happy and loyal. When your company understands the importance of customer satisfaction, you will display a readiness and attitude to care for customers and they in turn will reward your company in more ways than one.
