Any business that has lasted long enough to have seen any success at all knows by experience if nothing else how mandatory and important customer satisfaction really is. The mistake many make, however, is in viewing this as entirely a result of the use of the product or service, as well as financial aspects of that. Too often, businesses overlook the other aspects of a customer experience which also must be closely measured for satisfaction.
Customer satisfaction should be the priority in all things, from the beginning of the customer experience all the way to the end, and it should be a priority set of metrics for every single step along this path.
With that in mind, let me give you some tips you may not have heard, that pertain to satisfaction before and after the experience with purchase and product/service use. This will serve not only to show you some of the other key components of making a happy customer, but also to ensure that you can approach them properly.
#1 – Making Research and Comparison Super Easy
Customer experience starts with awareness of a need, but from there, a large part of the cycle consists of the customer mucking about in researching the need, researching their options, and formulating a decision from this information.
Making it easy for the customer to learn everything about you, and see a very detailed set of key comparisons with your competitors from one place is a big bolster to satisfied customers. The less time they have to spend on research, and the more informed they are after the fact, the happier they are. Put it this way, if they have to call you to ask you questions at this point, that’s marks against satisfaction.
#2 – Variable Purchase Platforms
This is one people overlook too often, and product managers with some ecommerce experience will vouch for that being a mistake. In the new millennium, people are very rapidly adopting online payment systems such as Google Checkout and PayPal as a main source of handling money. People are becoming too smart to fall for the predatory nature of credit cards, and the faith of most in the world banking systems is quite shaken as a result of recent economic climates.
Customers who can use their preferred method are happy customers, be it a prepaid debit, an actual bank card or something like PayPal. Accepting multiple ways to pay means more happy customers.
#3 – Self Service
Finally, while it’d be easy to just cop out and suggest going multi channel with your customer support and service, and finding a way to enhance these for better speed, I’m going to recommend something a bit more ambitious, but guaranteed to satisfy customers.
Adopting self service where applicable, with the help of onboard systems is the most convenient form of customer service out there. Customers simply have to go and fix a problem on their own, with no wait for any form of human intervention. A customer with no wasted time is indeed a happy customer.
So, you can see that customer satisfaction depends on far more than just the quality of your product or service, or the prices you ask for these. These three points are not all there is, but if you’ve got these covered properly, you’ll get a heck of a lot further than you would otherwise.
