You're managing a large business and need to track customer satisfaction. What's the best tool for the job?

There are specialized platforms designed specifically for gathering and analyzing customer feedback. These platforms often include features like sentiment analysis, text analytics, and customizable reporting. Examples include Medallia, Qualtrics, and Zendesk. NPS is a widely used metric that measures the likelihood of customers recommending your product or service. It's based on a single question: "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?" Customers are categorized as Promoters (score 9-10), Passives (score 7-8), or Detractors (score 0-6). Interviews and focus groups can provide qualitative insights into customer satisfaction to understand the underlying reasons behind their opinions and behaviors.

Various tools can be employed to track customer satisfaction, including Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys, Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) surveys, Customer Feedback Platforms, Social Media Monitoring Tools, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software, and Online Review Platforms. The choice of tool depends on factors such as business requirements and budget. Combining multiple tools can provide a holistic understanding of customer satisfaction across different channels.

Surveys provide direct feedback from clients about the quality of service or product they received. This information is vital to identify the gaps in service or the product. It can help in benchmarking satisfaction levels against industry standards or competitors. Engaging customers through surveys demonstrates that you value their opinion and are committed to improving their experience. It can strengthen the relationship and encourage open communication, leading to more meaningful feedback and engagement over time. Lastly, Positive feedback from customer satisfaction surveys can be used to generate testimonials and case studies, which can be powerful tools for marketing and building credibility with potential customers.

Here are some examples: Zendesk, HubSpot Service Hub, SurveyMonkey, Type form, Google Forms, Salesforce, HubSpot CRM. There are many other tools to explore

Clearly define your goals: What do you hope to achieve with this survey? Knowing your objectives will help you craft targeted questions that yield actionable insights. Keep it concise and engaging: People are busy, so avoid lengthy surveys that feel like chores. Aim for brevity and use clear, concise language to keep respondents engaged. Offer a variety of question formats: Mix up multiple choice, open-ended, and rating scale questions to gather diverse perspectives and encourage detailed feedback. Choose the right delivery channel: Consider your target audience's preferences and reach them through their preferred channels, whether it's email, online forms, or even SMS.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a measure used to gauge customer loyalty, satisfaction, and enthusiasm with a company that’s calculated by asking customers one question: “On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this product/company to a friend or colleague?” Aggregate NPS scores help businesses improve upon service, customer support, delivery, etc. for increased customer loyalty.

The surveys should be kept as brief and self-explanatory as possible. This ensures they are easily answered and can be straightforwardly analyzed.

When choosing a platform for tracking customer satisfaction in a large business, consider features, scalability, integration, customization, user-friendliness, data security, and customer support. Prioritize platforms with robust features, seamless integration, and user-friendly interfaces, while ensuring scalability, customization options, data security, and reliable customer support.

Identify what you want to learn from the survey. This could be understanding overall satisfaction, feedback on recent interactions, or insights into specific areas of your service or product. Have a clear goal and knowing what you aim to achieve with the survey will help guide its design and the questions you ask. Lastly, understand who your customers are, including their preferences and needs. This knowledge will help tailor the survey to be more relevant and engaging for them.

Before you jump on to gather in customer satisfaction data, I think it’s important to consider your overall customer engagement model at what point, are you going to look for customer satisfaction as a key KPI that would help you decide what to improve, what to stop doing, or where you need to start doing something better or new. A typical engagement model : On boarding - Here you could use CSAT as a metric. Adoption - Here. In addition to utilisation, you could also use CSAT. Retention Expansion Advocacy

Clearly outline objectives and determine the main questions to ask customers regarding their satisfaction and areas for improvement. Compare survey platforms based on features, benefits, and costs. Choose one with customizable templates, robust analytics, and integrations. Utilize platform templates and best practices to design clear, concise, and relevant surveys. Test for errors before distribution. Distribute Strategically:Choose the best method and timing for distribution (e.g., email, SMS). Utilize triggers, reminders, or incentives to boost response rates. Analyze and Act on Data:Regularly analyze survey data for patterns and insights. Use findings to inform decision-making and prioritize actions for improving the customer experience.

In a large business earning the customer's trust is vital for growth - hence essential to listen to customers - not as a one time exercise but ongoingly. CSAT tracks customer feedback & is best deployed at interaction touch-points, served up as a survey immediately after a customer interaction. Designing and serving surveys is best done through tools that have the capability to collate & help analyse large volumes of data. Even though response rates to surveys are sub 5%, gien large voume of transactions, it is still good sample size to understand voice of customer A good CSAT tool will provide dashboards to track CSAT by touchpoint, by customer type, show trends over time and draw insights that can be converted to corrective actions

The most important thing to look at is customer retention rates/repeat purchase rates. This will tell you if your customers are satisfied or not.