Everything your customers never told you. The keys to truly listening to customers

You have certainly implemented good practices, you have surely been inspired by certain great models to always satisfy your customers. And so, perhaps like 80% of companies, you consider that you offer a “superior or excellent” quality of service to your customers…

The problem is that only 8% of your customers agree! (Lee Resources study). That says it all!

There is a real gap between your vision of satisfaction and the concrete perception of your customers.

How can you be sure that you really satisfy them? Kestio offers you a list of four key fundamentals to master for an efficient customer experience.

1 – Get to know your customers

What is customer satisfaction? The customer's assessment of the service provided by the company . When the customer feels that the quality of the service offered meets or exceeds his expectations, everything is fine. Customer satisfaction is therefore determined by his own expectations, and his assessment of the commercial performance that he perceives from the service. Not all of your customers have the same expectations of you, nor do they have the same vision of the efforts you make for them. Thus, a relationship that is identical in all respects will not be judged in the same way by two customers.

Having made this preamble, we perceive how essential it is to know your customers well. Not in a global way, but on the contrary in a more detailed, individualized way . Depending on what he is, what he experiences, what he expects from the brand, a customer will not have the same judgment on your service. Having a "customer-centric" approach, placing customer knowledge at the heart of your efforts, is therefore essential to improve your satisfaction score.

Studies such as focus groups, customer surveys, and also feedback from employees in direct contact with your customers, provide an initial overview of these elements. Tools such as personae, studying expectations, or defining customer journeys are all useful approaches for sharing and maintaining customer focus. Better still, having framework documents and compiling information from the field is essential for… structuring your listening approach !

2 – Listen to your customers!

Evaluating the quality of service (both real and perceived) inevitably involves... listening! Are you making efforts to structure your sales pitch? Do you have internal procedures for your customer relations and your points of exchange? That's good. But also think about listening to your customers . Why is this listening effort so essential? Because nearly 98% of negative experiences do not result in any complaints. Customer "complaints" are therefore far from representing the level of satisfaction of all your customers. A low volume of complaints is not a sufficient indicator to prove that your customers are satisfied with your services. A restaurant that has no (or few) comments on a customer review platform does not necessarily inspire confidence. The same goes for your business.

It is therefore important to set up a complete listening system that corresponds to your business. You need to find the right moments, the right themes for questioning, the right media and associated channels. What matters above all is that the elements captured are recorded effectively to be used. Listening alone is not useful. The feedback must then be used to change your habits, to develop behaviors, or even your products and services! These developments or considerations must also be visible to the customer to enhance their intervention.

3 – Place satisfaction at the heart of your efficiency

Placing customer satisfaction at the heart of your organization and making it a factor of efficiency and motivation for teams is an innovative challenge for your business strategy. It is not recommended to isolate the measurement of customer satisfaction and make it an indicator "like any other", monitored too occasionally. On the contrary, making the information collected from customers usable and concrete is essential. This openness effort allows you to:

• • Lead teams and raise awareness of customer culture throughout the company . Sharing indicators, which results in an adaptation of the remuneration system, allows, for example, to involve everyone in the required efforts;
  • Manage and improve a consistent quality approach and processes throughout your sales management . With open data, the effort is collective, and the solutions proposed are adapted and corrected thanks to customer feedback. We do not play alone, but within a real "team" at the service of the customer.
  • Optimize marketing campaigns through more precise targeting (specific emails to dissatisfied customers in order to win them back, promotion of satisfied customers who know your quality, etc.);
  • Develop an offer that is truly and constantly adapted to the target via increased knowledge of customers . Knowing your customers better means better understanding their needs, and therefore optimizing all key indicators (conversion rate, order rate, recommendation rate, average basket).

4 – Use suitable tools

Good customer satisfaction monitoring also involves choosing the right tools. Tools for measuring, collecting and processing information, but also for sharing data . Good dashboards, easily readable and available, will help you streamline exchanges and make customer satisfaction this famous shared indicator, seen by all.

The choice and implementation of tools is a subject in its own right that we will develop in a future dedicated article... To be continued!