How to Measure Customer Satisfaction
Decide what you want to find out., Consider qualitative and quantitative approaches., Understand the strengths and weakness of qualitative research., Consider the benefits and drawbacks of quantitative research., Plan your research.
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Decide what you want to find out.
Measuring customer satisfaction could cover a wide range of different areas, so you should start by thinking carefully about what it is precisely that you want to find out.
Write down a list of the most important findings you hope to uncover in your research and then organise them in order of importance.
This could include:
How satisfied the customer is with the quality of the product they purchased.
How satisfied the customer is with the in-store experience.
What the customer thinks about the pricing policies of your business.
To what extent the customer felt that his needs were fulfilled. -
Step 2: Consider qualitative and quantitative approaches.
Once you have an idea about the sorts of questions you want to ask, and the kind of information you want to gather, you need to think about what approach to take.
You can break down approaches to measuring customer satisfaction into the qualitative and the quantitative.Qualitative data would include personal, emotional and subjective responses of individuals.
Quantitative data could include of statistical records of how often a customer revisits your store, or how often goods are returned.
You need different surveying techniques to gather these types of data, so think about whether you want to focus on one approach in particular, or perhaps both., Qualitative and quantitative techniques both have specific strengths and weaknesses, so you need to consider what type of data you are hoping to produce.
Qualitative information on customer experience and satisfaction gained from interviews or focus groups will help you identify key issues and recurring problems across your customer-base.
Qualitative research can give you helpful and insightful information about customer perceptions of your business.
You can also get a clearer picture of the expectations customers have and in what way you are or are not meeting these expectations.The information will, however, be fairly loosely structured around a few key questions.
It can provide you with answers that are open-ended and lack specificity. , Quantitative research can give you more discreet information and results.
It will provide data that is more easily measurable along an objective scale, but will lack the nuance and contextualisation that you get from qualitative research.
A survey that has defined answers, such as "agree"
"disagree"
"partially agree" will provide you with quantitative data which you can collate easily.
Quantitative research is a good way to get a picture of the responses of larger numbers of customers, but the information you gather will be less detailed than qualitative research., Once you have decided what kind of information you are looking for, you need to carefully plan out your customer satisfaction measurement strategy.
You will need to think about what questions you are going to ask and what exactly you are trying to measure.
You will also need to think about who you are going to ask, and how you are going to ask them.Will you conduct interviews over the phone, face-to-face, or through an online survey? Will you ask specific questions with limited answers, or more open-ended questions? How will you coordinate your customer satisfaction research? -
Step 3: Understand the strengths and weakness of qualitative research.
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Step 4: Consider the benefits and drawbacks of quantitative research.
-
Step 5: Plan your research.
Detailed Guide
Measuring customer satisfaction could cover a wide range of different areas, so you should start by thinking carefully about what it is precisely that you want to find out.
Write down a list of the most important findings you hope to uncover in your research and then organise them in order of importance.
This could include:
How satisfied the customer is with the quality of the product they purchased.
How satisfied the customer is with the in-store experience.
What the customer thinks about the pricing policies of your business.
To what extent the customer felt that his needs were fulfilled.
Once you have an idea about the sorts of questions you want to ask, and the kind of information you want to gather, you need to think about what approach to take.
You can break down approaches to measuring customer satisfaction into the qualitative and the quantitative.Qualitative data would include personal, emotional and subjective responses of individuals.
Quantitative data could include of statistical records of how often a customer revisits your store, or how often goods are returned.
You need different surveying techniques to gather these types of data, so think about whether you want to focus on one approach in particular, or perhaps both., Qualitative and quantitative techniques both have specific strengths and weaknesses, so you need to consider what type of data you are hoping to produce.
Qualitative information on customer experience and satisfaction gained from interviews or focus groups will help you identify key issues and recurring problems across your customer-base.
Qualitative research can give you helpful and insightful information about customer perceptions of your business.
You can also get a clearer picture of the expectations customers have and in what way you are or are not meeting these expectations.The information will, however, be fairly loosely structured around a few key questions.
It can provide you with answers that are open-ended and lack specificity. , Quantitative research can give you more discreet information and results.
It will provide data that is more easily measurable along an objective scale, but will lack the nuance and contextualisation that you get from qualitative research.
A survey that has defined answers, such as "agree"
"disagree"
"partially agree" will provide you with quantitative data which you can collate easily.
Quantitative research is a good way to get a picture of the responses of larger numbers of customers, but the information you gather will be less detailed than qualitative research., Once you have decided what kind of information you are looking for, you need to carefully plan out your customer satisfaction measurement strategy.
You will need to think about what questions you are going to ask and what exactly you are trying to measure.
You will also need to think about who you are going to ask, and how you are going to ask them.Will you conduct interviews over the phone, face-to-face, or through an online survey? Will you ask specific questions with limited answers, or more open-ended questions? How will you coordinate your customer satisfaction research?
About the Author
Elizabeth Wells
Experienced content creator specializing in home improvement guides and tutorials.
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