Sunday, March 15, 2009

An Easy Way to Gauge Customer Satisfaction?

By Dennis Lewis

Can you make measuring customer satisfaction easy?

In an tough economy like this, everyone knows that customer satisfaction is vital. Just like you, your customers are reviewing every expense and questioning every long-standing decision. This means you must do everything possible to not lose your valuable paying clients. Studies show it costs 12 times more to win a new account than to maintain an existing one.

In a raging bear market, this difference turns into a gaping hole.

Theory says that finding out what your customers are thinking should be simple. After all, you only need to ask them good questions and analyze their responses with care.

However, the truth is that it just isn't easy to pull off.

A few years ago I got to meet Jack Welch (he won't remember the occasion, I'm sure) and one of the things he said stuck in my head, "You can't improve what you don't measure." But I was stuck with a question, "How do you measure without going under in the process?"

The problem with measuring customer satisfaction resides in the measurement process. Invariably this process includes:

1. Design the survey questionnaire.

2. Create the actual survey (a printed survey, a webpage)

3. Distribute the survey.

4. Ask clients to fill out the survey.

5. Gather the filled out surveys.

6. Calculate the survey responses.

7. Analyze the survey results to make conclusions.

Each of these steps takes a considerable amount of effort and expense to put into practice.

However, a new tool on the market, Gustometria, significantly reduces the time, effort and cost of measuring your customer satisfaction. And more importantly it provides you with powerful analysis tools which feed on the responses in realtime. Customer satisfaction measurement has never been this easy before.

Not only does the Gustometria system permit you to easily and affordably track your customer satisfaction, it provides four more important benefits:

1. Adapt and change your surveys any time you wish.

2. Integrate customer satisfaction measurement into your daily business processes. Since your customers are answering the survey right at the checkout counter, while waiting for their receipts, you will achieve excellent participation rates. The whole survey process usually takes about a minute, and it effectively demonstrates to your client how important his opinion is to your company.

3. React immediately when you detect a problem. The fact that you are receiving results back in realtime truly empowers the system. If something is going wrong, you find out today, in time to implement a solution immediately. Tomorrow you'll be able to confirm whether the new solution is as effective as you hoped.

4. Gustometria not only provides quantitative measurements, but you also get direct customer feedback in realtime. Customers can submit suggestions, complaints or kudos whenever they feel like it and you'll find out immediately.

The truth of the matter is that Gustometria opens every corner of your business open for improvement. You can see what's going on, even if you can't be there.

Yes, measuring customer satisfaction can be easy. In fact it's as easy as picking up the phone and calling Gustometria toll free at 1-877-448-7865.

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