The satisfaction of your customers is an essential tool for assessing how your online business is performing and which measures are particularly efficient. It's important to make sure you keep track of your customers' satisfaction and provide content that existing customers want to see and that reaches new customers. But often it is not so clear what options there are for making customer satisfaction measurable. That's why we'll introduce you to the tools you can use for sustainable analysis.
Which tools can tell you how satisfied your customers are with your performance?
There are different methods with which you can measure and evaluate the satisfaction of your customers. Not only can you use different tools, but you can also combine a range of approaches. By identifying the right customer satisfaction methods for your online business, you can always keep your finger on the pulse. That's why it's worth taking a closer look at the following tools:
- 1) The customer satisfaction survey
- 2) The Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- 3) The Customer Effort Score (CES)
- 4) The Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
- 5) Social media monitoring using sentiment analysis
- 6) Things Gone Wrong (TWG)
1. The customer satisfaction survey
By inviting your customers to take part in a satisfaction survey in your online store, you can get direct results. A popular method that is both time and cost efficient is to conduct an online survey. You can implement the survey directly in your store's website and invite customers to take part in the survey via email or your newsletter. To motivate customers to participate, the survey should be designed to be appealing and entertaining. You can also offer benefits to customers who complete the survey.
A link to the survey can also be embedded on your social media profile to generate greater reach. After the online survey has been completed, the key figures are evaluated using corresponding parameters and the results are used to derive strategic measures.
However, it is important to remember that the results of the survey only provide a snapshot of customer satisfaction. In addition, it can be costly to establish and evaluate a high-quality online survey. This tool should also be used in moderation so as not to annoy customers.
2. The Net Promoter Score (NPS)
You can determine both these scores using a single question. The underlying issue is how willing your customers are to recommend your online store to others. This question can be integrated into your regular online presence in different ways. For example, after completing a purchase. Customers can indicate on a scale of 0 to 10 how willing they are to recommend your store to others. Based on the results, customers are divided into three categories:
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The promoters: These customers are also called loyal enthusiasts and rate you a 9 to 10 on the point scale. These customers are willing to recommend your offers to others, making them active participants in your growth.
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The passive customers: This group selects a 7 or 8. They are satisfied but not enthusiastic, meaning they are susceptible to offers from the competition.
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The critics: These customers give you a 0 to 6 on the scale, expressing dissatisfaction. These customers can inhibit growth and discourage other customers from buying from you through negative reviews.
To calculate the__ NPS__, subtract the percentage of your detractors from the percentage of promoters. The better the result, the higher the basic level of customer satisfaction with your performance.
3. The Customer Effort Score (CES)
This score measures customer effort, i.e. the difficulty they have in using your store, in order to determine customer satisfaction. The focus is on the effort a customer has to make to get a solution to a problem. The CES is not directly about customer satisfaction, but about how uncomplicated it was for the customer to achieve their goal. After all, the easier it is for a customer to get what they want, the more likely they are to reward a company with their loyalty.
The advantage of the CES is that you can examine different aspects of your performance. You ask the customer a specific question and offer a point scale as an answer option. If you would like to receive specific suggestions, you can also offer an open comment field. You can integrate the CES at many points in the customer's interaction with your online store. For example, you can include this kind of survey after an interaction with customer service. By doing this, you can easily gauge how your customer service is perceived. Getting constant feedback from customers, especially in ways that require as little effort as possible on their part, is very useful for you.
4. The Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
This method is an extension of the CES, because you determine customer satisfaction directly with regard to a concrete problem. For example, you can determine how satisfied your customers are with regard to delivery time. Customers are asked a specific question about their individual satisfaction and can rate this on a scale. As a rule, the scale is from 1 to 5 and can be visually displayed using stars, a traffic light or comparable symbols.
To get a result that you can use as a basis for strategic decisions, take all positive answers, i.e. 4 and 5 ratings, and divide them by the total number of all other answers. Multiply the result by 100.
The__ CSAT__ gets interesting when you track this value over a longer period of time, enabling you to see trends. The value represents the average satisfaction of your customers with regard to a specific aspect. However, you can't tell from this what causes the score.
5. Social media monitoring using sentiment analysis
Social media is becoming increasingly important for branding. That's why monitoring, i.e. keeping track of your performance on these channels, is becoming more and more interesting. Sentiment analysis determines which signals are transmitted by users. The easiest way to do this is for the employees who deal with your social media presence to regularly evaluate the comments, likes and ratings. This has the advantage that concrete issues can be examined very clearly.
Social media monitoring also includes researching trends and starting points for the company. For example, current hashtags and trends that influence your customers and your target group can be used to improve your reach. But scanning user and influencer profiles that might be of interest for a promotion or collaboration is also a useful tactic.
6. Things Gone Wrong (TWG)
In contrast to customer satisfaction, with the TWG method you specifically determine what your customers don't like. For example, you can relate the number of complaints, disputes or returns to a key figure.
In order for the Things Gone Wrong score to be meaningful, it is important that concrete parameters are determined in advance that are precisely tailored to your company. This score is also only meaningful if you collect the results continuously, so that you can see trends.
How can you sustainably integrate customer satisfaction methods into your strategic considerations?
You will get the best results if you use different methods and collect and compare values over a longer period of time. In order to save resources, working with extensions that you can easily connect to Shopware is ideal. This has the advantage that you can easily and compactly control different measures of customer satisfaction using Shopware. Take a look at the category "Evaluation and Analysis" in the Shopware store.
In the Shopware Store you will find specific extensions for evaluation and analysis, which you can filter according to your requirements.
Conclusion
Whatever tool you use: By carrying out regular surveys, you can read trends and better assess the success of your measures. By combining methods for measuring customer satisfaction, regularly collecting data and integrating them into your strategic considerations, you can establish yourself sustainably with existing and new customers. With the help of a software solution like Shopware, you can connect expert solutions from the partner network and ecosystem, saving you time, money, and resources, and at the same time achieving high-quality results.
Do you want to learn more about customer satisfaction?
Then get ready for our series on the topic: Customer happiness – how to make your customers happy. Subscribe to our newsletter or check back here on the Shopware Blog regularly to make sure you don't miss out!
