Six tips and metrics for measuring customer satisfaction

Alongside conversion rate, customer loyalty and customer satisfaction are high on the agenda of many companies. In the first step, the challenge is to find the most meaningful values and evaluate them in the overall context. LogMeIn, a leader in customer engagement technology, has drawn on its years of experience to compile six tips on metrics and approaches to help companies with "Operation Customer Satisfaction."

Ask the right questions

Companies can collect various figures to determine customer satisfaction. Collecting data is the first step in arriving at actionable insights. However, for customer interactions to be used to optimize the customer experience, it is crucial to know what questions companies ask their customers and how detailed the answers are.

Six tips for measuring customer satisfaction

Companies should pay attention to the following aspects when measuring customer satisfaction:

1. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) as a central value for customer satisfaction: When it comes to measuring customer satisfaction, the obvious metric is the CSAT itself. For the simplest survey of CSAT, a question is asked such as "How satisfied are you with the service you received?" and answered with a value on a numerical scale. The difficulty with a survey of this type is that many customers, especially those who have not had an exceptional experience, ignore the survey and do not participate. But it may also be that the emotional aspects of the customer experience are glossed over in the aftermath. Yet it is these that could be critical to improving the customer experience and relationship. That's why it's important to look at CSAT in the context of other metrics.
2. Customer experience vs. customer expectationAs a supplement to the question about satisfaction, a question about the customer's expectations can be used. This involves checking whether customers agree or disagree with a statement such as "The service met my expectations". Gradients should also be taken into account here. Examples: Agree completely; Agree mostly; Agree hardly.
3. Use the Net Promoter Score to measure the likelihood of recommendations: The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a key figure that provides information on how likely customers are to recommend a product or service to others. To determine this figure, there is an NPS model that is designed to help companies inquire about and evaluate the behavior of their customers in the right way. To do this, the model divides customers into three groups: Promoters, Indifferents and Detractors. The first group speaks positively about the company, the second group is neutral, and the last group expresses negative opinions. To find out which category a customer belongs to, the question is asked, "How likely are you to recommend us?" The answer on a scale of 1 to 10 provides information about a single customer transaction. The distribution among the customer groups yields the actual key figure, the NPS. A value greater than 0 means that the company succeeds in turning customers into brand ambassadors. However, it is often not clear to customers how the model works and they tend to relate the question to their satisfaction rather than to recommendation, so that the value loses significance. Therefore, it can be useful to explain the model briefly and concisely to customers before they answer the question.
4. Reduce response time to customer inquiries: In addition to surveying customers, it is important to identify harder facts for evaluating the customer experience. In this context, an important KPI that influences customer satisfaction is a company's response time. It is a frequent source of frustration for customers - especially when they do not receive any attention for a long time and e-mails or chat requests are not answered quickly enough. Nowadays, customers expect response times of a few hours or minutes. 24 or even 48 hours are no longer acceptable.
5. Complete requests at the first contact: Complementary to response time, the First Contact Resolution Rate (FCR) quantifies the percentage of customer inquiries that are answered during the first contact and provides information on how effectively and efficiently customer inquiries and problems are resolved. Measuring response time and FCR not only serve as indicators of customer satisfaction, they can also alert companies to potentially damaging delays.
6. A short turnaround time is appreciated: The average processing time is another key figure that gives an idea of how efficiently customers are served. However, like the other values, it should always be viewed in conjunction with the CSAT or the NPS, since a short turnaround time is desirable in principle, but not at the expense of satisfaction. The overall picture of the key figures shows whether customers are satisfied with a company for a long time or whether there is a risk that they will turn to a competitor.

"To measure customer satisfaction, companies rely on CSAT or NPS. But for a comprehensive assessment, other metrics should also be considered," advises Sandra Schröter, senior international product marketing manager at LogMeIn. "In doing so, it is advisable to bring the data together in one place. From the big picture, it becomes clear how well a company is meeting its customers' expectations. Insights like this are essential because today, the customer experience is more important than ever and critical to long-term business success." LogMeIn offers Bold360, a digital customer engagement solution that helps companies make customer interactions more intuitive and efficient.

More information at: www.bold360.com/de/