The success of your business depends on many factors: number of orders, time of delivery, and competitiveness of the offer. However, what will build the base of loyal, returning customers is the experience you can give them. Pure emotions, the intangible value that you feed your customers. Take care of the level of customer satisfaction, and your company will be rich, recognizable, and trusted.
How was it?
Do you know those small Italian restaurants where the food is simple and delicious, and the owner greets guests on the doorstep, offers wine, and tells stories from his own life? It is about them, and not about museums, monuments, and beaches, after returning from vacation. And even if you bring original olive oil, prosciutto, or pecorino cheese with you, you will never recreate what you loved so much in Italy. That taste was the taste of a unique experience. Of course, it was composed of many things: excellent local products, the atmosphere of a cozy restaurant, the presence of the owner, the fact that someone took care of you. You can transfer each of these values to your business. Italians, brought up on gastronomy, know perfectly what their customers need and never forget to measure their satisfaction, so they ask simple questions, for example: how was it?
Why is customer satisfaction so important?
First of all, because it pays off. Acquiring a new customer is several times more expensive than retaining the current one. It’s pretty obvious: you’ll spend less money improving one process related to better customer service, for example, than reprocessing the entire system of acquiring, attracting, servicing, and selling to someone who doesn’t know you. Take care of your customers, because no one is as valuable as those who bought from you more than once.
Acquiring a new customer costs several times more than retaining the current one.
Your competition is probably fierce. Customers today do not feel the level of brand attachment they felt a few years ago. That is why so many companies focus on personalizing advertising messages, looking for niches in groups of recipients. Users are eager to check the offers of competitors, they give up services in which something “did not work for them”. Find out what’s wrong with you – you will find out why they are leaving.
As a rule, people like to share their feelings of dissatisfaction or harm with others. Raw Pizza will get a review on Google much faster than the one that won the taste buds of the whole family. Remember that a dissatisfied customer is likely to share his feelings with others. You have to ask the satisfied one for the opinion yourself.
A satisfied customer will bring you another one. Dissatisfied one will drive ten away.
Satisfaction guaranteed or money back
Many brands are advertising using this slogan today, especially those offering small household appliances. No wonder, home appliances, and electronics are goods that lose their value very quickly. This means that in order to stay ahead of the competition, they must advertise themselves with values other than the lowest price guarantee or availability. That is why marketers of the largest brands such as Philips, Samsung, or Whirpool put their emphasis on satisfaction. It is the most important factor that helps to make subsequent purchasing decisions from the same manufacturer. You are not satisfied with your clean-shaven cheeks or our brush was louder than the one from the competition? No problem, you can return them. You might think that this idea sounds crazy, but research shows that only 3% of consumers return purchased goods due to dissatisfaction with its use.
When we buy a mixer, we buy an idea of a modern kitchen, a happy family, and confirmation that we are excellent cooks. The new bicycle webcam is a promise of future adventures, beating your own sports results, building a sports figure. It all comes together into one powerful emotion that you never forget: it’s the customer experience.
Customer experience is more powerful than money. That’s what your customers buy.
I can get no satisfaction – but I’m trying
Remember, you can react to whatever is happening or has happened. Practice customer satisfaction monitoring and build customer experience as if it were good habits that you put into your life. Make them a ritual, a must in the life of the products you sell or the services you provide. There are many ways to measure customer satisfaction: surveys, analytical tools, and interviews. No matter what you choose at the beginning. It’s important to try and test solutions until you find the perfect solution for your brand.
Test, test, test – asking questions and checking different solutions will bring you money.