Tag: Customer relationship management

How exactly do you measure customer satisfaction?

customer experience cx

As a small business owner, you know that delivering an outstanding customer experience is one of the most important things you can do to be successful.

But – how exactly do you measure customer satisfaction?

Here are a few common customer experience metrics

Net Promoter Score (NPS): The NPS is an index that ranges from -100 to 100 that indicates how willing a customer is to recommend a company’s products or services to others. It divides customers into three categories: Promoters (loyal + satisfied), Passives (satisfied + unenthusiastic), and Detractors (unsatisfied + unenthusiastic).

First Contact Resolution (FCR): FCR gives an indication of how well you resolve customers’ support requests the first time by tracking the number of interactions in a case. Tracking your FCRs helps you see what you can do to keep the average number of interactions low.

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): CSAT is the average score awarded to your brand according to customer answers on a survey. Small businesses use CSAT scores to determine how satisfied customers were with specific products or services.

You should now have a much better understanding of what customer experience measurement is and why it’s important for you to prioritize its measurement. Awesome!

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How to define the customer experience (CX)

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What exactly is customer experience (CX) and why is it so important?

Customer experience is the sum of all experiences a customer has with your business, either during one transaction or over the lifetime of your relationship. Customers receive some kind of experience when dealing with your business, ranging from negative to positive. A company’s ability to deliver a positive experience each and every time that someone does business with it sets that company apart from its competitors in the customer’s eyes. Research shows that customers do business with companies they like, so the more positive experiences a customer has with your business, the more they’ll continue to do business with you — in essence, your customer develops brand loyalty, and brand loyalty translates into dollars.

How to define the customer experience

To define your customer experience, it’s important that you know what your customers want and need. How do you know what their experience should be like if you’ve not asked them what they want from you and your business? What pains are you solving for them? Primary market research should be conducted early on with your target market to make sure you know what customers are looking for, what their pain is, what’s missing, and where you can fill a gap in the marketplace. Once you have an understanding of what your customers need, you can visualize the best ways to satisfy those needs through customer experience. Start by putting yourself in your customer’s shoes – revisit our earlier posts about the Empathy Map here and here to get started.

Delivering what customers want

Of course, designing a great customer experience is only the first part — you must actually deliver on that experience, and then measure your CX satisfaction to make sure you’re delivering a great CX for your customers. Then you must ask the customer if they had the experience you wanted them to have. A Harvard Business School study of large companies in the US found that over 70% of business executives believed their companies delivered on their customer experience design. But when the researchers asked the customers of those businesses, the story was quite different. Only 8% of customers felt they had the experience they were looking for. Yikes!

Why the difference? Sounds like the big companies weren’t communicating with their customers — either they were designing the wrong customer experience, or they weren’t delivering the experience properly. In any case, the customer walks away with a less than positive impression and the business loses future sales potential.

How can you deliver the customer experience that’ll inspire loyalty? Let us know in the comments!

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CRM software is not created equal

When it comes to customer relationship management – or CRM – you need to be organized and on the ball. In this day and age, we turn to technology solutions more often to help us in our businesses. At GoForth Institute, we love technology, but can’t stress enough how important it is to plan first, implement technology second. And not just any technology – the right technology for your needs.

A few years ago, Computerworld published a great article about choosing the right CRM software for your small business. The article asked small business owners exactly why we use the CRM software we do – is it because your business has always used it? Did you get a discount from a salesperson? Is it the one your competitors use? Ask these questions about any other system or process your business has and you can see why they aren’t necessarily the best reasons for making a small business decision.

So – how do you choose the right CRM software for your small business? All software is not created equal. The article stresses the importance of finding CRM software that works for your business, not making your business work for your software. Take the time to understand what exactly your small business needs out of customer relationship management software. Do you need email newsletter dissemination? Does it need to be web-based? Are sales reports necessary? Once you’ve narrowed down your choices to one or two, take advantage of trial periods to test out your software. And we recommend walking away if there is no trial period available – investing in your business should always be done with as much information as possible.

The Computerworld article has a list of great questions to ask CRM software vendors – titled “Grilling Your CRM Vendor” (figuratively, not literally).  Click here and scroll down to the bottom of the article. These are valuable answers to have in choosing the right customer relationship management software for your business. Knowledge is power. Happy hunting!

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