What are customer satisfaction surveys?
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys are used to understand your customer’s satisfaction levels with your organization’s products or services. This is one type of customer experience survey and can be used to gauge customer needs, understand problems with your products and/or services, or segment customers by their score. They often use rating scales to measure changes over time, and gain a deeper understanding of whether or not you’re meeting the customer’s expectations.
Why is customer satisfaction important?
Customer satisfaction is at the core of human experience, reflecting our liking of a company’s business activities.
High levels of customer satisfaction (with pleasurable experiences) are strong predictors of customer and client retention, loyalty, and product repurchase. Data that answers why a customer or client enjoyed their experience helps the company recreate these experiences in the future. Effective businesses focus on creating and reinforcing pleasurable experiences so that they might retain existing customers and add new customers.
Types of customer experience surveys
There are a few ways you can measure customer experience through surveys. The first question you need to answer is what metrics you want to use. The most commonly used metrics are:
- Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) – This is a commonly used measure for product and services to rate how happy consumers are with what they purchased. The typical survey question to collect this feedback looks like, “How would you rate your overall satisfaction with the [goods/service] you received?” then offers a 5-Point Emoticon question type such as “Extremely dissatisfied”, “Somewhat dissatisfied”, “Slightly dissatisfied”, “Satisfied”, “Very satisfied”.
- Net Promoter Score (NPS) ® – Probably the most popular measure of customer affinity towards your company. Created and trademarked by Bain & Company, NPS is a quick survey that typically asks “How likely are you to recommend [company name] to a friend” with a 11-Point Numerical scale question from 0-10.
- Customer Effort Score (CES) – This metric measures how hard it was for a customer to be able to complete the task that prompted their interaction. This survey question could look like, “How easy was it to deal with our company today?” This survey and measurement system can be useful for post interaction surveys with customer service or support teams.
Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.
