One Principle That Drives Customer Satisfaction
This article was written by Jim Miley and published by Crossroads Professional Coaching.
We’re all frequent customers, so we have a lot of first-hand knowledge of evaluating our own customer experience. Grocery shopping, utility suppliers, your bank, restaurants, doctors, airlines, living in Louisiana through the 8 months of summer…. Air conditioning service providers.
I have an internal meter that activates whenever I’m in the customer role. It may be my blood pressure, but nevertheless, it’s a very active barometer that affects my disposition and my memory of the experience. My customer satisfaction meter is constantly providing very real feedback on how I feel about the quality of any given supplier. You know the consequences of poor customer satisfaction, but a short list is appropriate for couching the subject.
The Impact of Poor Customer Satisfaction
- Lower satisfaction equals lower perceived value
- Lower perceived value equals a lower price point
- Reduced satisfaction equals a reduction in repeat business
- Lower satisfaction means a reduced likelihood of customer referrals
What Causes Poor Customer Satisfaction
When thinking about why we’re not satisfied with a given service, we often think about the specific part of the service that didn’t meet our expectations. But I don’t see that as the root cause in most cases.
Of course, you should strive to produce the highest quality product or service at a competitive price and deliver it reliably. The point of this post is how to drive high customer satisfaction no matter what.
My earlier career was in a Fortune 500 manufacturing firm. We had metrics, data, surveys, and focus groups to tell us what drove customer satisfaction. As a global leader in our industry, we also specialized in failing to deliver on time, on budget, with zero defects most of the time. Repeating for reinforcement, we had a terrible record of delivering the basic product as ordered. But we were the global leader, and many of our customers were very loyal. It was weird.
How did our Sales Engineers manage such customer loyalty and positive feedback when we failed to properly deliver the basic elements of the customer orders? Drawing upon my own poor customer service experiences, I noted a common theme among the transactions that register the worst on my customer satisfaction meter.
You can look at the root causes of customer satisfaction from two distinct perspectives: from the negative and positive directions. What causes dissatisfaction? What produces high satisfaction?
When I review my highs and lows of customer satisfaction, I see a common thread.
I personally tend toward being very dissatisfied when I don’t feel the service provider cares about my needs. I could write for days about stories where a supplier did not seem to care about nor understand my needs and expectations. Note that I’m not talking about the physical transaction; only how I feel about the supplier’s consideration.
In the large industrial manufacturing world, the most successful Sales Engineers maintained customer loyalty by having and communicating a very keen understanding of the customer’s needs and expectations. Even as we chronically missed scheduled dates, the sales staff had to communicate and show the customer that they were doing everything that they could to improve the situation. The customers most often understood the “big iron” manufacturing world and rewarded the Sales Engineers for their advocacy through the manufacturing process. To help you understand, a large machine could take up to a year to design and manufacture. Manufacturing often included factories in foreign countries.
When I encounter a less-than-ideal service product as a customer, my feeling of satisfaction is driven by how the supplier, service manager, shop, or sales rep responds and communicates.
Like the large industrial customer, I know things don’t always go according to plan, but I expect my contact to go to work for me to improve the situation. I expect them to show they care and understand the potential impact on me as their customer. Because they care, they act like they care.
That’s it.
The One Principle That Drives Customer Satisfaction is that the company and all of its customer-facing employees have to show that they care about the customer.
Do you think that is obvious? Pay attention to your own experience as a customer and take note of how much the employees you encounter show that they care about you and your needs. From restaurants to auto repair, home repairs to medical offices, internet providers to airlines.
Survey your own business. Who talks to customers, and how well do they understand the customer expectations and needs?
I don’t see problems with employees not caring about the customer’s needs; at least that’s not the norm. The more frequent issue is that your staff has internal things they have to fight to exceed the customer’s expectations. Pricing or profitability, subcontractor issues, inventory, backlog; there are many headwinds to simply delighting every customer all the time on the expressed terms of an order.
Problems with customer satisfaction that you can affect show up when your customers don’t think your business cares or understands their needs.
There are a few simple things you can do to make sure your business drives toward high customer satisfaction.
1. Train Your Staff
Make sure your staff understands why and how people use or need your products and services. It’s frustrating to the consumer when the salesperson has no idea why I need what they provide. This knowledge helps your employees convey a sincere understanding of the customer’s needs.
2. Train Your Staff!
All customer-facing employees must understand that they are the face of the company anytime they are speaking with or in the presence of a customer. Professionalism, courtesy, and an empathetic disposition should always be obvious.
3. Train Your Staff.
There is always a way to show the customer we care. I’ve written on The Prescription for Retaining Unhappy Customers.
The Prescription is a tangible way to handle troublesome jobs to optimize customer satisfaction even in imperfect situations.
You can’t always deliver a perfect order for your customers, but you can deliver close to perfect customer service. Make sure everyone in your business knows how important their role is in assuring customer satisfaction, even when situations are not perfect.