“The future depends on what you do today.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
What a quarter you had! Of course, it’s encouraging to have been successful in the past, and the numbers stand as testament to what you’ve accomplished. Scanning over those participation, membership or financial reports, reminds you just how successful you were. You may even have some unique ratios or benchmarks you use to more precisely assess your past performance. It’s all helpful historical data, but wouldn’t it be even more helpful to have information that would forecast your chances for success in the coming quarters? One man has discovered this crystal ball.
According to Claes Fornell, author of The Satisfied Customer, and developer of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), an outstanding predictor of future profitability is your customer satisfaction score. As Fornell puts it, “Satisfied customers are more likely to come back for more,” he adds,”…long term profits come from satisfied customers.”
The founder and chairman of an international consulting firm, Swedish born Fornell, even demonstrated that an investment portfolio made up of firms with high ACSI scores consistently outperformed the market. He concludes then that customer satisfaction improvement will likely lead to improvement in profitability.
You see, what he’s saying is that you can put on your customer service glasses and look into the crystal ball to see what your chances look like for success in the coming quarters. This then, begs the question, “What’s the best way to assess customer satisfaction?”
There are many ways to determine the satisfaction level of customers, but how about a method that is inexpensive, simple and accurate? Anonymity, by the way, is essential to higher customer participation and transparency. I recommend online surveys and here are 3 tips on how to do it:
1. Ask the right questions. In my experience there are two key questions to ask to get a big picture view of your customer’s satisfaction. First, “How likely are you to recommend (Insert you.) to others?” I prefer a 1 to 10 scale. Then follow that question with, “What’s one thing we could do to improve that score?” These big simple questions keep you out of the weeds and raise the response rate.
2. Monitor the average. If, over time, the rolling average score on that first question is headed up, your chances are better for success in the next quarter, but if you see that average headed down, your future is looking cloudy, and it’s time to drill down and find out what’s going on. Closely review the answers to question two. Of course, the fresher and larger your sample the more helpful your score.
3. Keep it short. Every question and word you add increases the likelihood that you lose a respondent. Need help? Below is a link to a sample that will take you to the Survey Monkey site.While SM does offer several plans, their low-end, no-fee plan will walk you through the basics of the process and get you started. You can also offer hard copies to the customers who are more likely to participate in this way.
So, there’s your crystal ball to success.
In another post, I’ll describe a simple tool that prompts you to be even more preemptive. It is predictive of trends, not just of your future revenue streams, but of your customer service scores. In the meantime, remember that…
“Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game.” ~ Tony Allesandra
Click here for the Survey Monkey sample.
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