4 effective ways to increase customer satisfaction

It's clear why happy customers are important. The next step is building your happy customer base. Here's how to increase customer satisfaction in your brand with 4 key strategies:

Listening to your customers is the best way to understand how they feel about your brand now and to identify the most meaningful steps you can take to improve customer satisfaction moving forward. Here are some of the ways to do this:

✓ Pay attention to customer feedback. Many customers are happy to tell you what they think directly, and they probably already do so in a number of formats. These formats can include:

• Customer reviews. Your customer reviews are a treasure trove of valuable insights. Don't let it go to waste. Use reviews to understand trends in what customers like most about your brand and where they see room for improvement.

• Customer service enquiries. Customer service data can provide insights into the main issues customers experience. Pay attention to how often enquiries come in, what they're for and how long they take to resolve.

✓ Solicit customer input directly. In addition to the feedback you already collect, you can prompt customers to share their thoughts more proactively. This can take a few forms:

• Customer satisfaction scores (CSAT). You can collect CSAT by sending a survey that asks customers to rate their satisfaction level with your business.

• Net promoter score (NPS). NPS is a metric based on a survey question asking customers to rate how likely they are to recommend your brand to friends.

• Qualitative customer surveys. Sending qualitative surveys with open-ended questions can provide you with more personalised responses and add colour to your CSAT and NPS ratings.

Convenience matters. If getting your products is difficult, customers may abandon their baskets or take their business elsewhere. Strive to make ordering and receiving your products as easy as possible. Here are a few smart tips to accomplish that:

✓ Build an intuitive website. Every website visitor should have an easy time finding the information they need. Offer intuitive navigation and consider adding filtering capabilities to help customers find specific products more effortlessly. When customers don't have to work hard to find the information they need, the decision to make an order is that much easier.

✓ Invest in a seamless checkout process. According to 2023 research from Dynamic Yield, basket abandonment rates are around 73%. That means a lot of people seriously considering a purchase drop out at the last minute. One good way to win back those sales is to make your checkout process as smooth as possible. Consider offering a few different payment methods so customers can choose the one that's easiest for them. And, if you give first-time customers the chance to save their information for next time, that makes every future checkout experience faster.

✓ Let customers place orders through multiple sales channels. Meet customers where they are by accepting orders from channels beyond your website and physical shopfronts. For example, partnering with third-party delivery platforms gives your current customers another easy way to place orders with you, and it helps you reach a new customer base as well.

✓ Offer multiple delivery options. Some of your most enthusiastic customers will want to receive their order sooner rather than later. You can make sure that all your customers get their items when they want them, on their own terms, by offering multiple delivery options. That could include traditional delivery, same-day delivery, express delivery (with items arriving in under an hour) and scheduled delivery. By giving customers more options to choose from, you increase your chances of satisfying all of them.

Customer issues will always arise, no matter how hard you work to create a great customer experience. One of the most important ways to achieve customer satisfaction is by making sure you're prepared to respond effectively when customers have questions and concerns.

✓ Prioritise training for your employees. Your staff has a crucial role to play in how customers interact with your business. Invest in training that provides them with the information they need to offer knowledgeable support.

✓ Provide omnichannel support. Customers now expect brands to be available across multiple channels. To provide them with convenient support on the channels that work best for them, invest in an omnichannel approach. Do your best to make support staff available by phone, email, social media, text and any third-party platforms you use. If you don't have the resources to manage all those channels, solicit customer feedback to identify which are most important to your target audience.

✓ Commit to fast responses. When a customer has an issue, they want help quickly. In a 2023 study from Shep Hyken, 86% of consumers said getting quick responses to customer support enquiries is important to them. Train employees to prioritise answering customer questions promptly. Don't let speed be the enemy of accuracy – it's better to get out a fast response letting the customer know you're working on it than to rush a response that provides the wrong answer.

✓ Create a positive delivery experience. The delivery experience is a crucial element of customer satisfaction – especially as more people expect quick delivery for the products they want (sometimes within minutes). Here are a few practical steps you can take to offer a better delivery experience:

• Confirm that all orders are packed properly to avoid any breaks or spills in transit. This is especially important for food and drink orders.

• Cross-reference the receipts for every order to make sure no items are missing.

• Strive to keep inventory up to date so customers don't end up ordering out-of-stock items.

• Work to share accurate delivery estimate times by tracking past data. The fewer surprises you create, the happier your customers are likely to be.

Meeting customer expectations with each order is a basic requirement for achieving customer satisfaction. But to go even further and inspire customer loyalty, you want to invest in building relationships with your customers. A few ways you can achieve that:

✓ Respond to reviews. Customers who take time to leave a review are engaging with your business. When the reviews are positive, a response shows that you're listening and gives you a chance to express your gratitude. Even negative reviews are an opportunity to try to own up to mistakes and mend relationships.

✓ Use email marketing to stay in touch. Email marketing is a way to stay top of mind with your best customers. Take care to only email the customers who have opted in to your email list. They're indicating that they want to hear from you – and that's valuable. Do your best to earn their continued attention with emails that provide helpful information and special promotions.

✓ Offer a loyalty programme. A loyalty programme gives you a way to reward your best customers. Knowing that each purchase counts towards future discounts can incentivise them to spend more with your brand. It's a smart way to further nurture customer satisfaction and turn it into long-term loyalty.

✓ Provide personalised offers. Customers who have signed up for your email list, created an account on your website or joined your loyalty programme all provide something you can use to serve them better: data. When you have information about a customer's past orders, personal preferences and special dates (like their birthday), you can use it to send personalised offers. And letting a customer know when their favourite item is on sale is valuable to them – and more likely to lead to new sales for you.