6 Easy Ways to Use Customer Satisfaction Data to Grow Your Business
Most business owners know, at least to some degree, how valuable customer insights are.
That’s the main reason why so many of them launch customer satisfaction surveys and collect the data relentlessly, after all.
But only a few companies truly realize how to use that customer feedback to boost growth.
There’s data to prove it too. According to research quoted by Forbes, 87% of executives are not confident that they’re leveraging their customer data.
Understandably, many small businesses also find it equally difficult to turn customer feedback into actionable insights.
In this post, you’ll learn exactly how to do just that. We’ll show you how to apply customer satisfaction insights into six critical areas of your business.
But before we get there, let’s briefly address how to collect this data.
How to collect customer satisfaction data
First things first: You collect customer feedback by running dedicated customer satisfaction surveys.
Pay special attention to the dedicated bit. That’s because there are, in fact, three different types of customer satisfaction surveys.
Each serves a different purpose and helps collect different types of feedback:
Post-purchase surveys: As the name suggests, these collect feedback after a completed sale or transaction.
Net promoter score (NPS) surveys: These help determine the overall satisfaction levels among customers by measuring their likelihood of recommending you to others. What sets NPS apart from other surveys is that you can use it to evaluate almost every aspect of your company’s operations - product, sales, support. To do that, you just need to amend the primary NPS question to inquire about a specific interaction.
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys: These help you collect insights on how happy customers are after having purchased from you.
These three survey types will help you collect data on customer satisfaction around various aspects of your company’s operations.
And here’s how to use those insights to boost your growth.
How to use customer satisfaction data to grow your business
1. Product development
Customer insights can drive product development in a whole range of ways:
Answers to NPS follow-up questions can reveal product functionalities that customers struggle with (or do not perceive as valuable enough.) Based on this feedback, you can identify which elements of the product you need to improve. Customer insights will also reveal which features need better explanation or self-help materials.
Customer satisfaction data will also reveal recurring issues customers experience with your product. Again, such information will help you determine how to improve the product and the direction you should take with product development.
Finally, you can use customer satisfaction and loyalty (measured with NPS or CSAT surveys, for example) as a means to determine their satisfaction with the product. Although the data might seem vague at first, it holds the key to deciding your next actions when taking the product to the next level.
2. Support and customer service
When considering customer surveys, many businesses think about using the data to identify where their support falls short - like having customers wait too long for a reply.
But did you know that those insights from customers can also help you improve the overall performance levels of the team?
Customer data can help you determine whether you are allocating support resources right. Perhaps you don’t have enough agents at the busiest times of the day? Or maybe the opposite is true, and you allocate too many people to staff hours when you don’t receive as many requests?
Similarly, these insights can reveal whether your agents need more training, either in product knowledge or best practices in supporting customers through new channels that you’ve launched, like live chat support, for example.
Another valuable insight you can collect relates to the most common issues your customers experience. Such data could reveal opportunities for creating more in-depth guides for customers and equipping support teams with ready-made templates and scripts that they could supply customers with quickly.
3. Marketing
Customer satisfaction data can tell you a lot about how to communicate with new and potential customers.
For one, customer feedback can teach you how your audience talks about what you sell. And needless to say, replicating your customers’ language and phrases they use will allow you to connect with them better.
You could also use customer feedback as testimonials and other forms of social proof.
Finally, customer feedback can reveal new potential keywords to optimize the site and increase your search visibility.
4. Branding and positioning
Finding your unique brand positioning - what sets you apart from other brands targeting the same markets - is one of the hardest things to do in business.
And that’s what customer satisfaction, particularly researched through NPS surveys, can help you with.
NPS surveys help you break your customer base into three categories: promoters, passives, and detractors.
Each group can offer a unique take on what sets you apart, and how you could strengthen that positioning further.
Following up with promoters and detractors will allow you to understand how each group perceives the brand. You can then adjust your brand positioning to those findings.
For example, you could put more emphasis on factors mentioned by promoters in your marketing collateral. And then, focus on fixing all issues that have turned some customers into detractors to differentiate yourself on the market.
5. Customer retention
Retention happens almost automatically when you begin to focus on measuring and improving customer satisfaction.
When you begin improving areas of the business that customers have pointed out as problematic, you’ll immediately reduce the friction and the reasons for someone to become dissatisfied.
In turn, this will result in greater satisfaction with your products and services and willingness to continue buying from you in the future.
6. Sales
Finally, the obvious: Customer satisfaction boosts sales!
Take a typical NPS survey, for example.
We’ve already discussed how the data segments your customer base by their attitudes towards the brand. Some of those customers identify themselves as promoters (people delighted with you). Others are passives (who can’t tell whether they love you or not), and detractors, who are dissatisfied with your brand.
And did you know that you could run upselling promotions to promoters and increase their lifetime customer value?
Those people have already confirmed how happy they are with you after all. So it’s only logical to assume that they’d also be interested in other products you offer.
Conclusion
Most businesses understand the value of customer satisfaction. Many of them relentlessly collect customer feedback and insights. But only a few know how to put all this data into practice and use it to propel their growth.
Well, you’re one of them now. You know how to use customer satisfaction data to improve six critical areas of your business: Product development, customer support, marketing, brand positioning, customer retention, and sales.
To conclude, let’s not forget the fact that a lot of the grunt work can be automated. Dealing with survey answers is a time-consuming task, and Make can help you bear it in no time with useful, easy to set-up integrations.
All that’s left now is to put this knowledge into practice.
Happy surveying!
