Are you a small business and don’t have an easy way to measure customer loyalty? I have found an application tool that I find useful, and you might too. A tool that helps us discover how much our customers love our service, is invaluable.
Our CEO had been asking us to measure customer satisfaction for years. How did we go about it? We used email and asked our customers questions. We asked, “How did the PowerPoint slide designs work for you?” And how many customers responded? Not as many as we hoped. Our customers are busy professionals, their time is valuable, and they are almost always already on their way to the next assignment. What we experienced quite often was a spontaneous reply email saying, “Loved the slides”; “Wow, that was fast”, “You guys are magic”, and so on.
While the team could celebrate this customer feedback, we could not measure anything. Our CEO was quick to point out that while we had page after page of customer praises, where was the voice of the silent customer? Who is responding? How often do they respond? What’s the true picture? Those were details that mattered.
The search for a tool to measure customer satisfaction
Not having the data to back the belief that we had highly satisfied loyal customers caused me to begin the search for an application that would measure customer satisfaction. I quickly discovered the Net Promoter Score (NPS). We’ve all seen it or even experienced it. Remember this?
“On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely would you be to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?”
Give me that survey, and if I’ve used the product or service, I will click and complete this survey every time. Why? Because it is a ONE TOUCH SURVEY. Fast, easy, and I know that it will help the business know my experience. However, give me more than a few questions and I move away.
If you are reading this article and are looking for a survey tool, you are doing what I was 10 months ago. As I discovered companies, read case studies, and used the ever popular G2Crowd site to compare companies. At the top of the list is Qualtrics. Now that’s an impressive company. Amazing customer interaction. I learned a few tips from their sales calls. However, the product was out of our budget. I will keep this company and its products on my radar and maybe use it sometime later.
We use HubSpot, so I looked at SurveyMonkey’s tool that integrates with HubSpot. The interface and ease of use did not fit my expectations. I researched about twelve companies and tested a few. In the end, I selected AskNicely. I decided on this tool because of the great interface. It does only one survey: the Net Promoter Score. That narrow focus was what we needed. The simplicity of the tool would increase adoption and use, and make it easy to launch quickly and successfully.
NPS Revealed 5 Things Beyond the Score
Now that we are using the tool we are able to experience the benefits.
1. We Get a Dynamic Score.
The entire company can know our score at any given time. We now have a customer loyalty score that our customers can see. It is not the only thing we look at. It is the starting point for our customer experience. In the end, we are validating the assumptions that we believed about our customers’ loyalty to Chillibreeze. Now we know how many responded and who responds. Account name, contact name, and the account manager’s name behind the score – we get to see all this. This connection allows our account managers to see their rating.
2. Instant Feedback is Rewarding
It doesn’t matter whether the customer gives us a passive or high score. We love receiving spontaneous comments. Each response, even if it is only a number, is like a gift. These gifts never grow old. Our team values all the replies – the good and the bad. A good response allows us to celebrate the people behind the score. A bad score gets us cracking on becoming even more fanatical about our quality.
3. Instant Action
When we receive a low score, we can reply immediately. The tool is easy to use and integrates with Outlook. There is no glitch in taking immediate action and sending a timely response. We can interact with customers while they are thinking about the pain point they experienced with our service. This benefit is at the top of our list. On one occasion, we discovered a customer was multitasking and pressed the wrong number! By the way, I can count on one hand the 5 times we have received a Low Score between 0-6. What we don’t like is the Passive Score (7-8).
4. The NPS Question is a Segue to Our Referral Target
Our company’s Widely Important Goal (WIG) Qualified Referrals is, going by our current referral rates, expected to rise from 37 at the start of the year to 75 by 31st December 2017. When our customers give us a top score (9-10) we know that they would refer Chillibreeze to a friend or another company. This opens the door for us to continue the conversation and engage our customers with specific resources to help them introduce our services to others.
Authentic and Instant Customer Testimonies.
After a customer selects a score of 9-10 they may take the time to answer the follow-up question:
[score 9 to 10]
As a customer what do you consider most valuable about Chillibreeze?
[score 7 to 8]
How could we get a higher score in the future?
[score 0 to 6]
We are sorry to let you down; can you tell us how we could do better in the future?
This is where the tool triggers the flywheel effect. We receive amazing stories, words of praise, insights into what our customers love, and customers’ ideas. The list keeps growing. Our team can read this instant praise and they feel appreciated and cared for by the company. Positive feedback through the NPS tool is a positive connection with a customer.
There is nothing more motivating than a positive feedback connection with a customer.
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