8 reasons Customer Satisfaction Surveys are important

Customer satisfaction surveys are important for keeping customers on your side by providing valuable insight to how customers perceive you.

Customer satisfaction surveys help you understand what is working across your business and what isn’t, giving you the opportunity to improve on the negative and double down on the positive. By opening the door for your customers to have their say, you’ll get ideas about other avenues you can explore to improve your business – such as new products or services.

It’s also much cheaper (and easier) to keep your existing customers than it is to find new ones.

And when you invite feedback, you’ll get to learn what makes your customers tick.

Here are 8 reasons you should implement customer satisfaction surveys.

1 .Build rapport with the customer

Start the conversation and show customers their opinions matter. Providing you act on this feedback, this can turn customers into brand ambassadors and promoters – which can increase your reputation by word of mouth. Word of mouth is the most trusted form of marketing and it’s completely free! You just need to earn it first.

2. Know what’s working

Without knowing what’s working, you risk potentially ruining a good thing with blind changes. For example, you might think a product isn’t generating much revenue due to tight margins and plan to change it. But a customer satisfaction survey may reveal that low-margin product is what brings a lot of customers to the store, making it a loss leader that generates additional revenue.

3. Right the wrongs

Customers who have a negative experience might not always make a complaint; they’ll just leave and never come back. This is because most people don’t like to instigate confrontation. But with a customer satisfaction survey, you are inviting the discussion and this makes customers more likely to open up about a negative.

Crucially: this gives you the chance to make it right and keep the customer on your side.

4. Find new opportunities

Give customers the opportunity to make additional comments about how you can best serve their needs. This can result in new opportunities to expand your product lines or services based directly on customer feedback, making it more likely to succeed. Not only can this improve customer spend but it can also improve customer loyalty and boost repeat business.

5. Build up a profile of your customer base

It’s important to know your targeted audience, so including questions about age, gender and location helps you to better understand your customer base. This data can influence marketing campaigns – such as using social media and emerging forms of social engagement – to reach Gen Z if they aren’t buying from you.

6. Track progress over time

By running surveys consistently year-after-year, you can benchmark your performance. So when you make changes, you can track whether those changes are having the desired effect.

7. Your competitors are doing it

Don’t miss out on the vital feedback your competitors are receiving and acting on. While you risk standing still, they will be making progress.

8. Informed decisions

Customer satisfaction surveys let you make informed decisions about changes to your business. It’s important not to be rash or do things on a whim. Letting customers have their say means any changes you implement can be grounded in what is likely to help you improve.

Conclusion

In this digital age, it’s easy for your customers to find your competitors with a simple Google search – so it’s important to take the steps to retain those customers. After they leave, it’s a lot harder to convince them to come back.

From in-depth annual surveys to NPS scores after each visit, getting feedback from your customers is crucial to making sure you are giving them what they want.