How to improve your CSAT score

How to improve your CSAT score?

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Poor customer experience is the biggest reason why 51% of customers say they will not continue to do business with a company. 

Forrester Research Inc. found out that among the surveyed consumers 69% of them claim that they shop frequently at retailers who provide consistent customer service. 

Clearly, Customer Satisfaction is the major influence behind a customer’s decision of whether they want to do business with you or not. 

ACSI has been tracking the CSAT score of American companies since the Q3 of 1994 when it was at 74.8%. Now, after more than two decades, in 2021 it stands at 73.7%.

How to improve your CSAT score1

The scores aren’t going up but it is best to not be too focused on CSAT scores. The score changes with the impact of expectation, trends, perceived value, business change, etc. 

To improve your own CSAT score you need to focus on providing consistent customer expectations. 

Continue to improve customer experience to win over them and give them the excellent customer satisfaction they expect from you. 

Here are several ways you can start making refine your customer’s journey with your brand and also gain those good CSAT scores.

Improve Customer Retention

Improve your CSAT scores

Upgrade Customer Support

A single bad experience and 33% of American customers claim that they consider changing brands. Customer Support is the part of the business that is in constant contact with the customers. This also means that they are one of the key pain points in a customer’s journey. You need to upgrade your customer support team with technologies that provide a seamless experience and lessen the burden from agents. 

With the increasing use of digital technologies your customer support also needs AI tools to monitor customer data, automate the analysis of data. You can uncover pain points and collect feedback in real-time.Using AI tools can prevent human error and can save time and resources for the company as well.

User Experience

Introduce more Support Channels

Call support or email is not the only way customers contact the company anymore. You need to introduce modern digital channels as the customers update their digital life. 

Communication channels for customers have changed drastically.

  • 62% of consumers use email
  • 40% use phone
  • 42% use live chat
  • 36% use the “Contact us” form
  • 31% reach out through Twitter

Surveys also show that 78% of Millenials have a change of brand perception when the company readily responds to social media inquiries.

Modern communication channels are the biggest platform that requires your full attention. Offering more channels to communicate will also make it easy for customer service agents to provide uninterrupted service to the customers. Consistent service is, after all, the key factor influencing your CSAT score.

Empower your Employee

American Express found out that 62% of customers said that they received a positive customer service experience because of the service rep’s knowledge. 

Properly trained employees with knowledge and confidence to make decisions can help the customers most effectively. Coach your employees not only on the knowledge they need but also on the kind of attitude they must have. They interact most with customers and play the most vital role in improving your CSAT score. 73% of customers say that friendly service reps are the reason they remain loyal to a company.

Make Customers the Center of business

Always ask how your customers will feel about your brand. This means that for every decision you make for the business you need to think about how it will impact your customers. Will they accept and like the change? 84% of customers claim that they are more likely to continue doing business with a company that treats them like an individual and not just a customer number on their system. 

The best way to show your customers that they are the core of your business is to provide a personalized experience. You can address them by their name whenever they interact with your brand. This shows that you are aware of the customer and care enough to know their name. Personalized customer experience can also improve the online conversion rate by 8%, according to TrustPilot. 

You can also offer special discounts on occasions relevant to the customer like birthdays. This reminds the customers that your brand cares about them and they are always on the company’s mind.

Improve Customer Retention

Act on the Feedback

Taking action on customer feedback is the most basic expectation that customers have from companies. Customers know that if you can send them newsletters and ask for feedback then you have resources to take action as well. Taking proper action and showing customers that you have made changes in the golden way to improve CSAT. You can show them that not only are you listening to them but also understanding their issue and resolving it. 

The disappointing data about customer feedback is that

  • Only 52% of consumers believe that companies are taking action on the feedback they provide. 
  • 85% of Companies take no immediate action on customer feedback. 

Use Customer Feedback management software and establish methods to respond to the customers. Look for the VoC (Voice of Customer) program that your employees can use to improve customer experience and therefore the CSAT score.

Resolve pain points in Customer Journey Map

Customer Journey Map can help you with what your customers go through. It monitors the entire customer experience including the positive moments and the pain points. By optimizing Customer Journey Map you can increase CSAT by up to 20%. 

Integrate your VoC into your Map to gain perspective from your customers about their experience. You can also use CSAT surveys to identify the issues your customers are facing with your service and look into them. 

This way you can reduce the listening gaps. You gain more data from customers themselves and convert customer journey maps into quantitative data. You can evaluate the data, analyze the experience and take action to improve your CSAT score.

User Experience

Upgrade your VoC Program

The most vital step for Customer Satisfaction is listening and taking appropriate action to resolve their pain points.VoC involves capturing and understanding customer insights so that feedback can help the company improve customer experience. Make full use of VoC by providing customers multiple options to provide feedback. Include all kinds of channels that can help you to listen to your customer’s feedback and inquiries. 

Companies who VoC has experienced

  • 55% increase in their customer retention rate
  • 23% annual decrease in customer service costs

Fix the Internal and External Pain points

You can only run your service smoothly if you solve the challenges of internal and external factors. Customers may face issues regarding website design, or customer service which may lead to disappointment. How your service team is helping the customers or your website is performing are factors that you need to solve from within the company. 

To optimize external factors you need to ensure the communication channels are performing seamlessly. The customers should be able to share their feedback through any channel and be heard by the company. You have to ensure that the company improves every element that customers interact with.

Ask other than “How satisfied are you on the scale of…”

CSAT surveys look for quantitative data. Numerical data though is good to support your campaigns and strategies do not provide in-depth insight on how the customer feels. Use open-ended questions to get detailed feedback about their reason for the score. 

For positive responses, find out what they loved about your company. This will help you identify your company’s USP and key differentiators. You can use these factors, consistently provide an excellent customer experience, and strategically improve your CSAT score. 

For negative responses, find out what bothers your customers. This will help you make improvements and changes wherever required. As a result, you can improve the customer experience before they start thinking about changing brands. 

Open-ended feedback may offer ideas, opinions, and suggestions that customers believe you should know. You can understand customer sentiment and live their experience through their own words.

Improve Customer Retention

FAQs

A CSAT score within 40 to 60% is considered okay, while below 60% is deemed as a poor CSAT score.

A CSAT score is calculated by the following formula

CSAT score = sum of positive responses/ total responses collected X 100

A CSAT survey uses one single question in various forms depending on the objective of the question. 

Service: How satisfied are you with (brand’s) service?

Company: How satisfied are you with (brand)?

Product: How satisfied are you with (brand’s) product?

The aim is to measure the satisfaction level of the customers.

Customer experience

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