ULTIMATE GUIDE

Improving
customer
satisfaction
 Table of 3 Introduction

contents 5 Why customer satisfaction matters

8 Most common drivers for low customer satisfaction

11 Ways to improve customer satisfaction

15 How to track improvements

19 Turn satisfaction into success

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Ultimate guide // Improving customer satisfaction

Introduction When your customer satisfaction (CSAT) is high, your business realizes greater
loyalty, higher customer lifetime value, and revenue growth. In fact, according to
McKinsey & Company, maximizing satisfaction along the customer journey could
increase customer satisfaction by 20%, lift revenues by up to 15%, and lower the
cost of serving customers by up to 20%.1

But customer satisfaction isn’t just a metric. It’s a business benefit that leads to even greater
rewards – one that is only attained when you take action to close experience gaps. These are
the gaps that occur when your customers’ needs aren’t met at high-value touchpoints along
their customer journey. Simply put, it’s failing to meet customer expectations. The process
of overcoming these gaps is an ever-evolving and ongoing process that must be continuously
advanced. If you want to increase satisfaction, improving experiences is the key. This guide
outlines exactly how you do that.

1
McKinsey & Company. “The three Cs
of customer satisfaction: Consistency,
consistency, consistency.”

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 SECTION 1

Why customer satisfaction matters

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SECTION 1 // Why customer satisfaction matters

Why customer Companies that win today are focusing on experiences. They don’t just react to problems
as they occur; they try to predict and mitigate those problems before they ever happen.
satisfaction Unfortunately, when it comes to meeting the wants and needs of customers there is a
matters perception gap: Companies think they perform better than they do.

of CEOs believe they deliver a superior experience,

yet only 8% of their customers agree.

That’s where Experience Management (XM) comes in. It’s the process of monitoring every
interaction people have across the four core experiences of your business – customer (CX),
employee (EX), product (PX), and brand (BX) – so you can spot opportunities for improvement
and take action.

This guide focuses on the customer experience and understanding how satisfied customers
are with your company, products, and services. But satisfaction is bigger than enjoyment,
broader than pleasure, and much more than just minimizing complaints. You need to be able
to understand and track whether you’re satisfying customer needs, so you can ensure every
experience you deliver is meaningful, positive, and meets their expectations.

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SECTION 1 // Why customer satisfaction matters

Why customer Customers who have repeated positive experiences with a product or a brand are more likely
satisfaction matters to become loyal. And loyalty pays off.

Loyal customers They try new They likely tell And this
come back. products and their friends. increases revenue.
services.
94% of consumers who 94% of consumers Increasing customer
rate a company as very 64% of consumers who rate a company retention rates by just
good in CX are likely to who are pleased with as very good in CX 5% increases profits
purchase again.2 a company’s CX are are likely to recommend by 25-95%.5
very likely to try a new the company.4
product or service
immediately after its
introduction versus
12% who rate that
company poorly.3

2
XM Institute. “The ROI of Customer
Experience 2020.”
3
XM Institute. “The ROI of Customer
Experience 2019.”
4
XM Institute. “The ROI of Customer
Experience 2020.”
5
Bain & Company. “Prescription for
cutting costs.”

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 SECTION 2

Most common drivers for

low customer satisfaction
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SECTION 2 // Most common drivers for low customer satisfaction

Most common All along their journey – before, during, and after a purchase – customers have specific wants,
needs, and expectations, and their satisfaction is ultimately driven by a company’s ability to
drivers for meet them. Customer satisfaction is a key indicator of your CX program’s success. If satisfaction
low customer is improving, you’re finding ways to meet your customers’ needs and expectations. You’re
satisfaction doing things right. These customers are more likely to stay loyal to your brand, which increases
customer lifetime value (CLV) and generates more revenue.

99.99% of But what if your scores are declining? Likely this means there is a problem in the customer
journey – whether that is with your product, the service they received, the price they paid
the time, poor compared with the experience they had, or a whole host of other possibilities. To rectify the
customer situation, you need to understand what is driving their feelings and what pain points are

satisfaction impacting their perceptions and experiences.

is a result of a Start by asking two questions:

failure to meet 1. Did you wrongly set expectations? In other words, did you promise too much?

expectations 2. Did you intend to deliver a particular experience but failed to do so in this situation?

Leonie Brown
XM Scientist,
Qualtrics

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SECTION 2 // Most common drivers for low customer satisfaction

Most common Generally, when looking at granular reasons for dissatisfaction, the drivers almost always boil
drivers for down to some form of friction. Things like unexpected costs and fees, untimely delivery, poor
low customer support, or a complicated experience. Finding and rectifying these points of friction along the
satisfaction customer journey will increase overall satisfaction. Interestingly enough, delighting a customer
is a bonus, not an expectation. After all, if you consistently produce delight, it will become the
expectation – one that might be difficult or costly to replicate every time.

And remember to make sure you’re realistic about what your product, service, and brand can
and cannot do, as this will help level set expectations from the start.

Beware of external factors

olitics
However, there is an unfortunate reality to expectation setting. No
matter what you do, some expectations will be wrong. These gaps
nvironment
occur because something has changed within the environment you
operate. Something that’s beyond your control. For example, your
competitor or competitors improved their offerings substantially ociety
and now you’ve fallen behind the market. Or societal demands have
shifted, and as a result, “environmentally friendly” is no longer an echnology
exception but the rule.
egal
While you can’t control these PESTLE factors, you need to monitor
and be prepared to address them.
conomic

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 SECTION 3

Ways to improve
customer satisfaction
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SECTION 3 // Ways to improve customer satisfaction

Ways to Once you know what drives satisfaction for your customers, you can take steps to make
improvements. By establishing an ongoing program to track and monitor customer
improve satisfaction, you can keep your pulse on changes in customer sentiment and behavior,
customer identify areas that need improvement, and take action to fix them.
satisfaction
Listen and remember.

Employ always-on listening. Customers will tell their stories – positive and negative –
whether you’re listening or not. Soliciting and reporting real-time customer feedback
across the range of touchpoints and experiences gives you the ability to identify and
prioritize areas for improvement.

Understand the touchpoints in the customer journey.

It’s impossible to improve satisfaction if you don’t know how or where your
customers are interacting with your brand. Map out the touchpoints before, during,
and after the sale – and make sure you understand the value of each touchpoint.
Then collect feedback along the way, so you can quickly spot pain points or ramp up
what works.

As you prioritize improvements and areas on which to focus, keep the value of each
touchpoint top of mind. For example, you discovered that two journey touchpoints
attribute to low satisfaction. One is critical to upsell or cross-sell, and the other
is not. If you do not understand touchpoint value, you may choose to prioritize
incorrectly – thereby missing the opportunity to directly impact revenue.
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SECTION 3 // Ways to improve customer satisfaction

Ways to improve Learn the key drivers of satisfaction.

customer Many factors impact customer satisfaction – and they aren’t the same for everyone.
satisfaction For example: One customer may value a quick response to an email inquiry. Another
might appreciate the product’s reliability. A third person may be attracted to your
ongoing commitment to sustainability. Three different people, three different drivers.
That’s why it’s so important to identify what elements matter most to key audience
segments. Being able to understand your customers – to hear them, know them,
and remember them – is the only way you can effectively meet their needs, prioritize
investments and improvements, and deliver hyper-personalized experiences at scale.

Create a culture of action.

Zero in on problem areas and close the loop quickly. Voice of the customer feedback
gives you a clear roadmap to where problems are most likely to arise. Use this
insight to proactively address these areas and avoid major issues. Review the data
you receive and look for patterns and trends in specific areas. Some questions you
may want to ask to identify possible pain points include:
• Was the experience easy?
• Was the experience what customers expected?
• Did the experience meet their specific needs?
• Are there issues with customer service?
• Is product quality high?

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SECTION 3 // Ways to improve customer satisfaction

Ways to improve Empower your employees.

customer Employees have direct contact with customers and can have a huge influence on
satisfaction their experiences. Give your employees the tools they need to meet customer needs
and the ability to make improvements. And take steps to ensure that your employees
are satisfied, too. The companies that deliver great customer experiences have 1.5x
more engaged employees than those companies with poor CX.6 Why? Because when
employees are engaged, they’re more likely to work harder and solve problems, get
along with people better, and stay longer at their companies.

6
Blake Morgan. “The Un-Ignorable Link Between
Employee Experience And Customer Experience.”
Forbes, February 23, 2018.

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 SECTION 4

How to track improvements

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SECTION 4 // How to track improvements

How to track Evaluating your efforts is a critical part of a successful program. After all, if you don’t know that
the steps you’re taking are working, you could be wasting time, resources, and effort – or even
improvements creating a negative impact.

Measure the different dimensions of customer satisfaction:

Dissatisfaction is synonymous Example question:

Overall with purchase regret, while
satisfaction satisfaction is linked to feeling Overall, how satisfied are you with
good about the purchase. the [Product, Service, Brand]?

Customer loyalty is the combination Example question:

of overall satisfaction, the likelihood
Loyalty Would you recommend [Product, Service,
of repurchase, and the likelihood
of recommending. Brand] to your friends and family?

Example questions:

The perceived quality of product How satisfied are you with the [attribute]
Attribute
and service attributes influences of [product, service, brand]?
satisfaction
customer satisfaction.
How important is [attribute] to your decision
to select [product, service, brand]?

Satisfaction influences post-

experience actions, such as Example question:
Intent to
recommendations, reduced use How likely are you to continue to choose
repurchase
of alternative products, and or repurchase [product, service, brand]?
preference changes.

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SECTION 4 // How to track improvements

How to track CSAT is a commonly used metric that indicates how you’re performing in customer service
improvements and product quality. Expressed as a percentage – 100% is fantastic, 0% is terrible – it captures
the “here and now” reaction to a customer’s specific interaction, product use, or event.

Keeping tabs on your CSAT score can help you:

• Gauge how well you are meeting customer expectations.
• Quickly identify pain points in customer service.
• Assess how customer satisfaction changes over time.
• Demonstrate to your customers that their experiences are valued and you’re listening.

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SECTION 4 // How to track improvements

How to track CSAT is not a one-and-done measurement. There are multiple occasions where you should
improvements incorporate CSAT surveys into your CX program.

Post-purchase or
Periodically Continuously
post-experience

Reflects the satisfaction Gives you an intermittent Assures that you are keeping
at the time of delivery or snapshot of experiences quality at a high level over time.
shortly thereafter. and expectations.

Evaluate how satisfied your customers are.

Download a free expert-built customer satisfaction survey template that’s
preloaded with the right questions to save you time and get faster results.

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 SECTION 5

Turn satisfaction into success

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SECTION 5 // Turn satisfaction into success

Turn While it’s important to look at CSAT scores from the perspective of overall satisfaction
and retention, always remember that customer satisfaction can have a direct impact
satisfaction on the success of your business.
into success

Increased customer
lifetime value

Greater customer
More revenue BENEFITS loyalty and advocacy

Lower customer acquisition

and customer service costs

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SECTION 5 // Turn satisfaction into success

Turn satisfaction Because customer satisfaction is so beneficial and is also complex and ever-changing,
into success you should make it an important element of your CX program. Measure, monitor, and take
steps to improve satisfaction on an ongoing basis.

The key to improving customer satisfaction

Listen and remember Process and understand Create a culture of action

START IMPROVING CSAT NOW

Access your free expert-designed CSAT survey template

GET STARTED

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