11 Best Ways to Improve Customer Satisfaction Rating (CSAT)

Interested to improve your customer satisfaction rating? In this article, we will discuss ways to increase your customer satisfaction score.

We live in a customer-centric world. Customers are the heart of every business, therefore their satisfaction is the number one priority for all businesses that are gunning for success. 

If your customers aren’t satisfied or happy with your services then your brand is at a loss as a low customer satisfaction rating leads to:

• High churn rate
• Bad reputation
• High customer acquisition cost
• Bad reviews
• Decrease in sales
• Losing to competition
• Lack of customer loyalty

What is a Customer Satisfaction Rating or Score (CSAT)?

Customer satisfaction rating (CSAT) is a yardstick for gauging the level of customer satisfaction in a brand. It is calculated by carrying out a survey on customers’ experiences on a scale that ranges from either 1-3, 1-5, or 1- 10.

A high CSAT is what all businesses must aspire for in order to achieve business longevity. 

In fact, according to Esteban Kolsky,13% of unsatisfied customers will tell 15 or even more people about their dissatisfaction. Whilst 72% of customers will share a positive experience with 6 or more people.

Therefore, you should continuously seek ways to improve your CSAT to remain relevant to your customers.

Here are the top 11 ways you can improve your customer satisfaction rating (CSAT):

1- Over Deliver/Exceeding Expectations

First of all, you need to identify and set your customer’s expectations, then exceed them. We live in a very competitive era especially in the digital world, with too many brands gunning for consumers’ attention. 

And consumers are left with a choice to make on a regular basis, will they settle for just another typical brand or an outstanding brand that stands out?

It’s a no-brainer, as they will continuously be drawn to brands that take it up a notch.

Related: Branding Cycle: Your Complete Guide

There’s a reason consumers are loyal to some brands, it is because they always outdo themselves, and over-deliver frequently in a way that constantly outshines their competitors.

You can exceed customers expectations by doing the following:

• Don’t overlook the details: The simplest gestures make the biggest impact. A thank you for an email, a little note of appreciation, using polite words when communicating to a customer, asking for permission to use their data, or send them promotional emails, these little gestures can surprisingly go a long way.
• Surprise your customers: Treat your customers on special days, for example, get info on their birthdays and send them a gift on that day. Offer out-of-the-blues Coupons and discount rates.
• Consistently upgrade the value of your products to stand out from your competition.
• Identify or establish your USP and leverage it consistently to set you apart.
• Increase the speed of your response rate without compromising on quality.
• Don’t wait for your customers to point out problems, be on the lookout to proactively address them.
• Follow up with your customers after a transaction. For example, you can find out how satisfied they are with your services, or ask them why they abandoned their carts.
• Always go the extra mile.

Related: Most Powerful Brand Words

2- Ask For Feedback and Act on Them

Where better to listen than from the horse’s mouth? The best way to know how you can serve your customers excellently is by asking them. 

Instead of making decisions based on guesswork and assumptions, improve customer experience using customer feedback. You can effectively ask for feedback by doing the following:

• Use Feedback software: You can use feedback software such as Qualaroo to survey visitors on your website or app.
• Carry out surveys: This is where you ask your customers questions through forms. You can use Survey Monkey or Google Forms for this purpose. Also, it’s important to include an incentive for taking these surveys to encourage customers.
• Conduct social media polls: You can conduct polls to get customers’ preferences on certain issues across all social media platforms. 
• Use Feedback boxes: Including a simple feedback form on crucial parts of your website and emails will give you insights on the little but significant issues your customers are facing.
• Use chatbots Transcripts: This is a popular application of AI on business sites to interact with customers in a conversational manner. You can use the transcripts to get insights.
• Use QR codes: Another way to collect feedback from users is to use QR codes. QR codes are safe and can be generated easily using a custom QR code generator.

Related: Best Survey Examples For Conducting Surveys Like A Pro

Take the information from the reviews and take the necessary actions.

3- Prioritize Employee Satisfaction

Here’s a fact: If your employees are satisfied and happy with your brand, the more likely your customers will be satisfied with your brand.

So it’s important that your employees are treated well, they should feel valued and appreciated, it will show in their work ethic.

Therefore, since improving customer satisfaction is a priority you have to make improving employee satisfaction a priority too.

Here’s how to improve employee satisfaction:

• Stay away from micromanagement: This frustrates employees as they feel handicapped at work.
• Give special recognition to employees who are going the extra mile and excelling at their work.
• Encourage employees to look after their health.
• Address the key issues they are facing at work.
• Give words of encouragement.
• Invest in their growth by offering additional training and educational resources. This will also have a positive effect on their work.

4- Offer Free Trainings and Educational Resources

Consumers appreciate brands that are not all about promotional content but also provide informational resources.

Providing your customers with articles, free training, guides, reports, etc will strengthen your relationship with them as this makes your brand more likable.

In fact, 80% of business decision-makers love to obtain company information through a series of articles instead of an advertisement.

The most popular and effective way to provide educational resources to your consumers is by running a blog that is updated on a regular basis.

Because, “82% of marketers who blog on a daily basis acquired a customer through their blog, in comparison to 57% of marketers who blog monthly.”

Related: Top Benefits of Blogging

5- Stay Updated With Customer Reviews

You can’t effectively satisfy your customers if you don’t know what they currently think about your industry?

Reviews are paramount and influential in this era, it’s important that you know how your consumers feel about your products as this can affect your brand image.

You can measure and Improve customer satisfaction after studying your brand’s reviews as this article from Mercato suggests.

In fact, 92% of consumers are more likely to purchase a product after reading a positive online review.

What are they saying? What do they like about your brand? What do they want to be improved? What don’t they love about your brand?

Don’t just look out for reviews about your business, also study the reviews of your competitors to get deeper insights into what your customers like and dislike. This can help to improve customer satisfaction rating.

Depending on your industry type, you can check out reviews of your brand from the following sites:

• Amazon Customer Reviews
• Trustpilot
• TestFreaks
• Which
• ConsumerReports
• Consumer Affairs
• Google My Business
• Yahoo Local Listings

Take actions to fix bad customer reviews wherever you find them. If you only respond to positive reviews and ignore the negative ones then it can harm the online reputation of your business. 

6- Deliver Additional Benefits/Services

Everyone loves something extra and getting an additional incentive from their usual. To Improve customer satisfaction you need to go the extra mile and make your customers feel special.

Here’s how to offer additional benefits:

• Give discounts.
• Offer a spontaneous special treat to your customers.
• Provide free shipping on some goods.
• Give out free offers like ebooks and reports.
• Reward your loyal customers.

7- Hire a Great Customer Service Representative

The person at the forefront of interacting with your customers on a daily basis makes a great difference to the satisfaction rate your business provides.

If your customer service representative makes a great impression and is kind to your customers, they are more likely to become loyal customers. This ultimately helps to improve customer satisfaction rating.

In fact, “68% of customers believe a polite customer service representative is the key to great customer service”.

A great customer service representative needs to be:

• Patients with consumer excesses.
• Good at communication.
• Attentive to consumers’ concerns.
• Persuasive to get the customer on board.
• Customer-friendly.

Also, don’t just forget about your customer service representative after employing them, regularly check on how they are doing to ensure that they’re improving your service and also to make sure you are not losing your customers due to poor services.

Related: Best Strategies To Retain Your Customers

8- Personalize! Personalize! Personalize!

At this point, if personalization is not part of your business strategy then you are way behind your competitors.

Related: SEMrush Review – Top Features Compared (Honestly)

Consumers expect personalized experiences, offers, and services, in fact, 83% of them are even willing to share their data in exchange for personalization.

This shows that for a customer to be satisfied with your business, you have to prioritize personalization in all your decisions.

Additionally, research shows 90% of U.S. consumers find marketing personalization very or somewhat appealing.

Here are ways to personalize customer experiences and improve customer satisfaction score:

• Develop multiple buyer personas to cater to your different target audiences.
• Segment your email list by the buyer personas created.
• Create content based on buyer personas: After creating your buyer personas, it’s time to create content that matches the needs of your buyer’s profiles.
• Create custom landing pages: As a business, you will have multiple offers that serve your multiple buyer personas. You can create a customized landing page for those offers to make it personalized.
• Collect data to gain insights into customer preferences. As mentioned earlier, consumers are willing to share data for personalized experiences.
• Provide product recommendations: Recommend products or services to customers based on their shopping history, they will appreciate the relevancy.
• Apply the use of marketing automation tools to capture consumers’ interest based on their previous choices.
• Facilitate upsells and cross-sells through the use of previously collected data to make products more relevant.
• Include the use of auto-populated forms.
• Create custom profiles for your customers to communicate with them personally.

Related: Best Marketing Automation Tools

9- Develop A Customer Experience Strategy

It’s a simple equation: a great customer experience equals a satisfied customer. In fact, “89% of consumers have switched to doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience.”

Therefore, you should have a strategy for enhancing CX to improve your customer satisfaction. 

Furthermore, “customers who had a very good experience are 3.5x more likely to repurchase, and 5x more likely to recommend the company to friends and relatives than if they had a very poor experience.”

Related: Ways Website Usability Affects Business Growth

Here’s are the best practices for a CX strategy:

• Define your business Customer experience standards for employees to be accountable to. 
• Identify your customer expectations to make it a reality.
• Research how your competitors are improving their customer experience levels.
• Appoint a customer experience specialist.
• Know your customers by carrying out a survey.
• Identify how to emotionally connect with your customers. 
• Demonstrate a lot of care at the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey.
• Get customer feedback in real-time, for example after rendering service for them, ask them to rate it.
• Dive deep into the history of actions that have made your customers happy and repeat.
• Provide self-service packages or opportunities.

10- Downsize Wait Times

More than ever, people are increasingly impatient as we live in an instant gratification world, so the last thing you want to do is delay a customer even by a minute.

In fact, a study showed that 12% of Americans rate their number one frustration with customer service as a lack of speed.

Related: Website Speed Test Tools To Upgrade Site Performance

Therefore, if your brand doesn’t decrease wait times, customers will eventually move to a brand that provides faster services.

Related: Best Ways To Increase Site Speed

Here are ways you can decrease wait times:

• Increase your website speed: This is very important because a one-second delay in page load time leads to a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction.

You can do this by: 

• Decreasing server response time
• Activating browser caching.
• Reducing image sizes.
• Investing in high-quality hosting platforms.

Related: Best Web Hosting For Beginners (Comparison)

• Use chatbots for immediate responses to inquiries.
• Speed up delivery time for packages.
• Minimize the processes to complete a transaction, keep it simple and uncomplicated.
• Implement self-service options.
• Effectively communicate your progress towards solving a problem.
• Be transparent about the issues at hand in order for them to manage their expectations.
• Make your services match customers’ expectations.

11- Provide Omnichannel Support

The way businesses reach and serve their customers has drastically changed, it has moved from one channel to multiple channels.

And you can’t just rely on one platform to connect with your customers, you have to make provision across all points of communication.

For example, an inquisitive social media user can be best reached through social media, imagine if your support services are only limited to email, that leaves your customer highly unsatisfied.

Omnichannel support ensures you engage with your customers wherever they need your services and attention.

In fact, “9 in 10 consumers want absolute omnichannel service.”

It involves a holistic approach to catering to your consumer’s needs, from email, social, real-time chats, text, calls, etc. This creates consistency and enhances your brand credibility.

Related: Best Tools To Measure Social Media Engagement

How to provide omnichannel support and improve customer satisfaction rating:

• Invest in CRM software to manage all platform issues.
• Have a 24/7 customer support strategy.
• Engage live chat services.
• Provide self-service opportunities.
• Enhance your brand’s mobile experiences.
• Have a FAQ section on your website.
• Create a social media support system.

Conclusion

Happy customers mean great business growth and enhanced brand credibility. Improving your customer’s satisfaction rating should be your topmost priority and it can be achieved in many ways.

The top principles to keep in mind are to know your customer’s preferences, get customer feedback, be consistent, and go the extra mile.

Get started with implementing the strategies mentioned in this post, and be consistent with them to see significant results.