Written by babelforce
Measuring Customer Satisfaction (CSat) is like flossing.
You know it’s a good habit to have.
But it’s easy to let the habit slide…
In a recent survey from Zendesk, one-third of businesses confessed that they don’t measure customer success in any way. That’s a worrying trend; customer service is a key part of how people choose which businesses to buy from.
Two-thirds of businesses understand this and ask for feedback.
That other third… they might need some pointers.
How to measure CSAT
Measuring CSAT means two different things: how do you deliver surveys and how do you analyze your data?
Today, we’re going to focus on the first question. You can learn more about analyzing CSAT scores in this post:How to Measure Customer Satisfaction Using CSat.
You have a lot of options for gathering customer feedback.
We’re going to focus on three:
- Post call IVR surveys
- Online surveys
- Outbound calls
#1 Measuring CSAT with IVR surveys
You know the setup; before you’re routed to an agent, you’re asked to agree to a post-call survey.
You talk to the agent. Then the feedback fun begins!
This is pretty simple to set up, provided your telephony is well-integrated with IVR. The process you create simply routes the caller back to the IVR once the agent disconnects the call.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- You already have the customer ready to talk with you
- Their most recent interaction is fresh in their mind
- Costs basically nothing to run
Cons:
- Tricky to set up if your IVR isn’t well integrated
- If the customer disconnects instead of the agent – no survey
- Only surveys the customers who call in
#2 Measuring CSAT with online surveys
Another really simple option; send out a link to an online survey. The trigger for this can be an interaction, or basically anything else you want.
In fact, you can send different surveys for different triggers – but more on that later.
The best way to send out these surveys is as a link within an SMS. Why SMS? The format still carries a lot of trust; the SMS response rate is an impressive 45%, compared with just 6% for email.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Surveys can be based on any trigger you desire
- You’ll likely get high engagement
- Customers often volunteer more time to an online survey
Cons:
- It’s harder to ask open-ended questions
- There’s a risk of brand damage from poorly thought out questions
- Survey fatigue sets in; consumers complete a lot of surveys
#3 Measuring CSAT with outbound calls
Let’s get proactive! Some of the best, most honest and most detailed feedback comes from person-to-person interviews over the phone.
That increase in quality is more expensive; the big question is how you can limit the expense.
Your auto dialer has a major part to play here. You want to call the right people, and you want to call them quickly. Integration is the magic word again – customer data from your CRM and Helpdesk can determine which customers to contact.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Generates high-quality feedback
- Addresses specific concerns for individual customers
- A good call can actually raise CSAT itself
Cons:
- Relatively high cost and effort
- Outbound call relies primary on well-integrated auto dialer
- You may need extra training for your agents
When to Measure CSAT
Measuring customer feedback is very important– but it’s only worth doing if you can do it well.
So when should you approach a customer to ask for feedback?
I don’t mean ‘what time of day’ (although seriously, don’t call people at 2 am…)
I mean, what should trigger a request for feedback?
Your surveys could be triggered by:
Interactions
Purpose: To explore the quality of your processes, the success of agents, and overall satisfaction.
Best suited for: IVR surveys.
Purchases
Purpose: To explore the quality of your sales process and the drivers of sales. To cement brand loyalty and promote future sales.
Best suited for: Online surveys or an outbound call for high value/B2B sales.
Complaints
Purpose: To uncover the root cause of a problem and make amends with the customer.
Best suited for: Outbound calls. Do these well or you can make the problem worse!
Resolved queries
Purpose: To confirm a positive outcome and prevent similar problems in future.
Best suited for: Online surveys.
A customer leaving your business
Purpose: To understand why customers leave – and maybe even prevent it.
Best suited for: Online surveys at scale – outbound calls where possible.
All of your options need some joined-up tools. Whether customers are purchasing or complaining, your response needs to be automatic; that’s the only way you can respond at scale.
For Zendesk users, that means fully integrating Zendesk with the other tools like telephony, IVR and your dialer. That way, any engagement with a customer – like a purchase – automatically forwards the correct survey.
Joining up the tools you depend on is the only way to create good, automated workflows across them.
Why Measure CSAT?
If you’ve made it this far you probably know why CSAT is important.
First, the basic CSAT score you create is a good general measure of your performance.
When you’ve got several surveys for different triggers – each with smart, focused questions – you can learn a lot about your sales funnel, recurring issues and agents who need more help.
Overall, measuring CX is good for your bottom line. According to Gartner, Customer Experience has now overtaken price and product as the key priority for customers.
Think about this:
- 92% of businesses are confident they can relate CX to revenue
- Loyal customers spend 67% more than new customers
- Across every group and in every country, customers prefer brands that ask for feedback
That should give you plenty to think about while you prepare your next customer survey…
About babelforce
babelforce is a global cloud communications platform focused on no-code integration and automation. It allows non-technical people to build even the most complex of integrated processes for customer-facing teams, particularly in the call center.
babelforce services are deployed in local data centers anywhere in the world: Europe & MEA, USA & Canada, APAC. As an integration platform, babelforce has integrators and pre-built connectors covering every component type used in modern contact centers and sales organisations: CRM, ticketing, BI, ERP, Workforce management and all kinds of messaging capability.The babelforce platform also gives direct access to infrastructure and algorithmic processing capabilities.