Five Steps to Ensure Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is essential. Neglect this part of your business, and pretty soon…well, you won’t have a business.

But how do you get better at it?

Today we are sharing five of the most important steps you need to take to ensure customer satisfaction. So you can develop a thriving business with a customer base that loves what you do.

Let’s check them out now.

The Five Most Important Steps For Customer Satisfaction

1) Improve your product or service

There’s a reason this is number one: if you have the best product in the world, there’s not a lot that your client will have to complain about. Unfortunately, “best product in the world” is a tall order. After all, even the most beloved products have features they can improve upon.

That’s why it’s important to adopt a mindset of continual improvement. You will never have the perfect product or service. What will always be within your reach, however, are the baby steps of making it better. 

And honestly, they really are baby steps. That’s because improvement is often just the numerous smaller steps you take added together.

So where do you start with improving your product or service? And how exactly do you know what to improve? That’s where testing comes in. Don’t be afraid to add new features that your customers or clients can try out. And once they do try it out? 

Well, that leads me to my next point…

2) Handle negative feedback professionally

If you want to ensure customer satisfaction, it’s essential that you take feedback seriously.

The first step in doing that is to accept that negative feedback is a natural part of the process. If you are a company with various products and services, you probably also have a variety of customer types. That means different people with different standards of quality. Because of that, negative feedback is simply a reality you must deal with.

More specifically, however, you should also use negative feedback as a wake up call for change. Maybe there is a feature your customers don’t like. Maybe they complain about your overall customer service. Perhaps they don’t like your website, and often reach out to you about their low quality user experience. 

Regardless of what the negative feedback is about, treat it like a professional. This includes letting the customer express themselves fully, asking clarifying questions if need be, and always treating them with kindness and respect.

3) Offer multi channel support

Your customers want to be able to contact you at their own ease. The problem with that is that your audience likely has a wide variety of platform preferences. Maybe it’s phone support, maybe it’s email, or maybe it’s a tool like website chat.

Regardless of what they prefer to use, make sure to offer multiple channels. This ensures that everybody gets their voice heard and has the chance to easily request customer support. That brings in more feedback from a larger number of customers and lets you implement it for faster levels of improvement. 

It also gives you a certain level of professionalism.

After all, which customer doesn’t appreciate numerous options to request customer support? Check out this article for the best platforms you might consider implementing. 

4) Take response time seriously

Speed is the name of the game. That’s because giving a client or customer the perfect answer isn’t actually their main wish. Rather, it’s all about giving them an adequate answer as quickly as possible.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should sacrifice quality. Your customers still want a good answer to their questions. But still, make sure you give it to your audience quickly. There is nothing more frustrating than waiting times!

This means cutting down on your response time. More specifically, it might mean making the switch from a channel like email, which can take a long time to respond to, to a channel like live chat, which facilitates instant communication.

Regardless of how you approach it, make quick customer service on your top priorities. Read this resource on the best way to increase the speed of your response time. 

5) Perfect the art of follow up

Just because your customers or clients aren’t saying anything doesn’t mean they are perfectly satisfied. In fact, in one study, the majority of unhappy customers didn’t actually say anything.

That’s a lot of silent dissatisfaction!

That’s why proactive follow up is so essential: it shows customers that you care and that you are fully committed to customer satisfaction. We have written numerous times before about the importance of email follow up. After all, timely email flows are one of the best ways to let your customer base know that you are thinking of them. Another way is through social media or simple phone calls.

Either way, make sure you are asking people for their opinion…even if they aren’t complaining!

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Are you an enterprise, nonprofit or small business looking for help on your website? Give us a shout! We provide a free consultation. Email us at info@lughstudio.com or call us at (718) 855-1919!