Do Your Customers Love You? Let Them Count the Ways.
Posted on Mon, Feb 14, 2011
They love you, they love you not. It’s Valentine’s Day and last week we demonstrated how you can show your customers some love. Now you should explore ways to gauge customer satisfaction and determine if the work you’re putting into the relationship is yielding results. Here are some ways to get inside your customers’ heads.
Where’s this relationship going?
If you want to know how the relationship is going, just ask. Gauging customer satisfaction is as easy as sending out a survey. Your customer satisfaction survey can ask a range of questions from what your customers think of your customer service, a new product or what additional products or services they’d like to see. Make sure you have an objective of what results you want to collect. You don’t want to make it too long, as your customers are busy.
Once you’ve determined what you’re going to ask, you need to plan a distribution method. You could provide a survey with every transaction, mail a postcard or conduct an online survey. Whatever you do, make sure you’re actually using the results to improve your customer service.
Make your relationship public.
It’s a good chance a majority of your customers are on Facebook or other social media sites. If they are, you should be right there with them. Listening is the foundation to a solid relationship. Set up social media listening tools like Hootsuite to see what people are saying about your company. Don’t be afraid to engage in the conversation and correct any issues publicly to show that you care about your customers. The key is to be transparent and authentic. If you have time, you should listen to what people are saying about your competitors.
Share the love.
If your customers sing praises about your company, share it on your website. If you’ve made a customer happy, they’ll have no problem putting their name online for you. Customer testimonials are a great way to attract new customers. Determine how you will collect your testimonials. Maybe there’s an open-ended question on your survey or you can have an online form. Don’t be afraid to ask, but always make sure you do. Testimonials are a true testament of your love.