A recent survey conducted by Marketing Sherpa showed a giant leap on the satisfaction scale between those who feel a company responds to their needs and wants – and those who don’t. The conclusion is thus: Well-understood and served customers are more than six times more likely to be satisfied than those who feel they aren’t understood and well-served.
Being understood really skews the curve, apparently. So the question is, what can you do to better understand your customers? Marketing Sherpa says market research starts here:
Ask them what they think. Surveys after a service or installation call can help you understand what customers think you did right or wrong. And you can use that information to do more right, less wrong.
Monitor reviews and Social Media comments. A review on a consumer forum like Yelp can provide valuable feedback into how well you’re doing in your customer’s eyes. If there are negative comments, you also have the opportunity to resolve a complaint and hopefully hold onto a customer.
Track customer service calls. What problems do customers experience after a service call? Are you hearing the same or similar complaints? An age-old example is having someone complain that you arrived past the promised window. Or that the customer wasted time because the part wasn’t on the truck. When you know what frustrates your customer (inconvenience, unexpected cost, wasted time), you know where to focus energy on improvement.
Train employees to record in-person interactions. Whether a receptionist gets feedback during a phone call, or a service tech gets a comment in the home, or a salesman gleans insight at a home show, these are all opportunities to learn from customers. Make sure your whole team understands the value of capturing this insight. After all, the better you understand your customers, the better you’re able to serve them – which leads to an increase in the number of satisfied customers you’re serving.