Table of Contents
What is a Customer Satisfaction Survey?
Why Customer Satisfaction Survey is Important?
Delight and transform loyal customers into brand evangelists
Stand out from the competition
Endorse positive branding amidst customers
Increase customer retention rates
Offer more personalized customer experiences
Types of Customer Satisfaction Surveys
CSAT Survey
CES Survey
NPS Survey
How to Create Customer Satisfaction Surveys?
Wonderful Examples of Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Hilton Hotels
Amazon
Taco Bell
Customer Satisfaction Survey Questionnaire for Retailers
Create Customer Profiles
Evaluate Service Satisfaction
Assess Product Satisfaction
Next Steps
What is A Customer Satisfaction Survey?
A customer satisfaction survey is a technique that assists in gauging your customers’ satisfaction levels with your brand’s products, services, and experiences.
Through this, you can find out what pleases your customers and what irks them. This is a wonderful opportunity for you to understand the issues with your products, services, and the retail experiences you proffer to your customers.
A common type of customer satisfaction survey is to use rating scales and determine how it changes over time. This way, you’ll know whether or not you are acing customer expectations.
Why Customer Satisfaction Survey is Important?
- Delight and transform loyal customers into brand evangelists
- Stand out from the competition
- Endorse positive branding amidst customers
- Increase customer retention rates
- Offer more personalized customer experiences
1. Delight and Transform Loyal Customers into Brand Evangelists
I always reckon brands to leverage the 3:1 loyalty equation while building their customer loyalty programs. That is, a three-staged process to earn loyalty before winning the one-staged bought loyalty.
When brands do not build their loyalty programs around this equation, there’s a risk for even the most loyal of your customers to vanish like the morning mist.
Let’s be realistic. Your customers have plenty of options to choose from. If not you, they can always go to XYZ. And your loss is another’s profit.
This is why you should conduct a customer satisfaction survey periodically. Maybe at Time X, your loyal customer would have been satisfied with 10 points on your featured product. But there also is a chance that the same loyal customer at Time Y, might display a satisfaction level of eight.
So, something fishy has happened between Time X and Time Y. And the only way to bring your loyal customer’s satisfaction to ten is through a customer feedback survey.
As you address the pain-point promptly, you can transform your loyal customer into your brand evangelist.
2. Stand Out from the Competition
Let’s imagine a situation wherein you’re going wedding shopping. Now, before deciding where to shop, you would do your bit of research, right?
And let’s say that after your research, you’ve concluded that Brand A is the best.
But suddenly, your bestie comes around and says, “Man, naw! Brand B is better. I made my wedding purchases with them and their customer service is simply amazing!”
You know where you’d end up going.
So, Brand B had that secret sauce of customer satisfaction to distinguish itself from its competitor. Without a customer feedback survey, how would you ever know if your customers were satisfied?
3. Endorse Positive Branding Amidst Your Customers
Customer satisfaction plays a crucial role when it comes to branding. And lest’s remember, that your customers have all boarded digital - irrespective of their age.
That said, social media in the hands of your customers can either build or break your brand. An unsatisfied customer has the liberty to express his downers with your brand, as can a satisfied customer.
And as you would know, one negative feedback can tarnish your brand image. So, it’s vital for your retail business to ensure that the buzz around your brand is always positive.
But even if you land negative feedback, be proactive and act for the best. Your considerate reply and prompt change of action can bring all smiles to your then sour customer.
4. Increase Customer Retention Rates
As you noticed in that wedding shopping example, your satisfied and loyal customers spread a positive word of mouth. Into the bargain, they keep coming back to you for your products and services.
Let me share a few data points below to drive home my message:
- 43% of loyal customers would spend more on the brand they are loyal to
- Highly engaged customers would buy 90% more often those who aren’t
See that?
Customer satisfaction reflects in the revenue. So, conduct customer feedback surveys, learn from them, keep your customers happy, and retain them. They’ll then never turn against your brand.
5. Offer More Personalized Experiences
When you understand the importance of customer satisfaction, you’d do everything you can to contact the unhappy customer in person.
And believe me, there are lots of strategies to convert an unhappy customer into a happy one. Neil Patel has some great tips around this.
Now, if you are looking for an immediate fix, you can offer vouchers or discounts. But to show your customers that you really care, conduct customer satisfaction surveys. Make this a habit and not an option, then you’ll do well :)
Types of Customer Satisfaction Surveys
- Customer Satisfaction Score Surveys (CSAT)
- Customer Effort Score Surveys (CES)
- Net Promoter Score Surveys (NPS)
As I walk you through the various types of customer satisfaction surveys out there, I’m going to show you what each of these surveys means and how you can calculate them.
Let’s get started!
1. Customer Satisfaction Score Surveys (CSAT)
What is CSAT?
A customer satisfaction score curvey is defined as the measure of your customer’s contentment with your brand. In this type of survey, you’ve got two parts - a question and a closed-ended response.
Here’s an example:
With this CSAT survey, you can understand how satisfied your customers are on a linear scale. It could be tailored for a specific product or service or interaction or transaction.
How to Calculate CSAT?
On a scale of 1 to 5, we consider 4 and 5 as Satisfied Responses. So, here’s how you calculate CSAT:
Just a heads up, while calculating CSAT, round your final results to the nearest whole number.
2. Customer Effort Score Surveys (CES)
What is CES?
A Customer Effort Score (CES) is defined as the measure of the effort required for a customer to complete a particular action. So, a CES breaks apart the end result with the process of actually getting to the result.
They are helpful in showing how seamless your flow is in your products and services.
Here’s an example:
How to Calculate CES?
To calculate CES, you need to first sort your responses into ranges. For instance, all the disagree responses would be 1 and 2. Neutral would be 3, while 4 and 5 would be the agree with responses.
And here’s how you calculate CES:
As you see from this formula, the Customer Effort Score primarily focuses on the agree range. That’s why we take the total number of agreeing to responses and divide it by the total number of responses. We multiply the resulting fraction by 100 to derive the percentage.
3. Net Promoter Score Surveys (NPS)
What is NPS?
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a type of survey that’s useful to gauge customer satisfaction and loyalty.
You can get this score easily by asking your customers how likely they are to recommend your brand to friends and family. You can follow this question by asking your customers why they chose that rating.
How to Calculate NPS?
As you see from the above example, you can ask your respondents to select a number between 1 (not likely at all) and 10 (very likely).
All the respondents answering anywhere between 1 and 6 are called detractors. Those who select 7 and 8 are called the passives. And promoters are those who rate 9 and 10.
In order to calculate the NPS score, you need to subtract the percentile of detractors from the percentile of promoters. But note that the NPS is always expressed as a number. The lower and the higher bound of NPS is -100 and 100, respectively.
How to Create Customer Satisfaction Surveys?
Wonderful Examples of Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Hilton Hotels
When you get zero results, there’s really no point in doing a survey, right?
Hilton Hotels follows up punctually after each of its surveys. It even has a curriculum called the Hilton Surveying Program in place. So, they look into all the surveys regularly to update the live data every night.
Presently, their response rate is 30% for their online surveys. And what’s more, their abandonment rate declined by 6% in a year.
Amazon
Trust me, Amazon seems to be exceeding user expectations by gathering all types of information!
The best thing about Amazon feedback surveys is that they are easily accessible. Besides, respondents can find the answers themselves in a knowledge base that offers customers with self-service support.
This way, the chances of incorrect purchases are reduced. And this makes a huge positive difference in the buying decisions of the customers.
Taco Bell
Taco Bell’s approach to customer satisfaction surveys is a must-mimic for all brick-and-mortar stores.
You see, Taco Bell gives all its survey instructions in its receipt. And they are placed in such a way that they are easily noticeable. They even incentivize customers by giving them rewards for undertaking surveys.
Taking it up by a notch, Taco Bell enters all survey participants into a sweepstake upon completion.
Customer Satisfaction Survey Questionnaire for Retailers
I’m going to now give you a list of customer satisfaction survey questions that you can use. I’m grouping them into specific categories to give you a better understanding.
Here we go!
Customer Satisfaction Surveys to Create Customer Profiles
Customer Satisfaction Questions to Evaluate Services
To understand this better, let me present to you a scenario.
Assume that you have a coffee shop. You can then ask your customers to rate the particulars in the image below to understand if they were extremely satisfied or otherwise.
Customer Satisfaction Questions to Assess Products
To understand how satisfied your customers are with your products, let’s assume that you own a fashion apparel store.
Following are some questions that you can ask on a range basis.
Next Steps
Keep the above survey questions as references. Follow the checklist too.
You will be able to build the cornerstone for understanding your customers. Gather all the feedback and act upon it. Address the needs and concerns of your customers individually or on a micro-level.
While of course, it might take some while to see an increase in the customer satisfaction scores, it’s a start nonetheless. Trust in the process, the scores will surely improve over time.
Persevere and your satisfied customers will drive your success.
Feel free to reach out to me if you have any clarifications on how to build a customer satisfaction survey for your specific retail niche.
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