The adage “If you measure it, you can manage it” often appears in books, speeches and even advertising, and is plastered across banners in corporate meeting rooms around the country. It’s been attributed to numerous people, but its roots likely lie in a quote by Galileo: “Count what is countable, measure what is measurable. What is not measurable, make measurable.”
The concept is simple, yet enduring because of its truth. The mantric version is relevant to multiple areas of life, but is particularly useful in business – and within that framework, applying it to customer satisfaction can be especially helpful. If you never ask customers how they feel about your company’s performance, you might not know where your weak spots are, much less be able to improve them. And when customers leave your business for a competitor’s, you’ll be in the dark as to why.
A customer satisfaction measurement program can take many forms. You can elicit feedback through casual conversations, surveys, customer comment boxes and even secret shopper services. No matter how you gather information, making it actionable requires proper analysis. Here at Randall-Reilly Publishing, we add to the measurement phrase, “If you monitor it, you can improve it.”
The Business Research Lab, a Houston company that surveys companies’ employees and customers, recommends “coding” customer comments in order to uncover patterns. Comments often are more valuable than fill-in-the-appropriate-box portions of surveys because customers are telling you what’s important to them, not responding to what you think is important. After quickly reading through a batch of comments, create a list of categories in which most would fit. They might include product availability, wait time, business hours and location, courtesy and staff knowledge, etc. Make a positive and negative column for each category, then go through the comments again, putting tick marks in the columns. You’ll get a clearer picture of the trends.
Of course this data is still ineffective if you don’t take action based on what you’ve learned. Ways to improve customer satisfaction, according to BRL, include linking it with employee incentives and recognition, developing specific plans and goals (based on what customers need) for dealing with problematic areas, involving front-line employees in this planning process and including customer-satisfaction expectations in employee training programs.
You’ll find much more advice on how to measure and improve customer satisfaction in the article on page 34. Editor Derek Smith brings you recommendations from the field’s top experts. I encourage you to take advantage of these best practices that can help you improve almost every aspect of your business.
