The Customer Satisfaction Analysis: More than Just Fulfilling a Duty

By conducting a customer satisfaction analysis, companies can gain an exciting perspective: how do their own customers perceive the products and services they offer? What potential for improvement do they see? A successful customer satisfaction analysis can do all this. Modern companies should therefore measure customer satisfaction not only because ISO 9001 requires it, but also because the results lead to long-term business success. Read here what constitutes a successful customer satisfaction analysis and why negative evaluations in particular bring so much benefit.

It all starts with a simple equation that shows that customer satisfaction is related to their expectations: if performance expectations are met, they are satisfied; if promises are not kept, dissatisfaction is the result. In today's market, however, this thinking is no longer sufficient. In the context of customer satisfaction, it is no longer just about meeting all expectations, but rather about exceeding them.

High customer satisfaction has many advantages and is associated with lower customer turnover. As a result, less money has to be spent on acquiring new customers – which is worthwhile, because it is well known that it costs more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. In addition, satisfied customers recommend products to others, generating new customers at no further cost. Last but not least, satisfied customers are convinced of the quality of a product and thus forgive the occasional error on the part of the company – and this prevents customers from dropping out and sales from plummeting. All this, to name just a few of the benefits.

Customer satisfaction can be measured with a target/actual value comparison: on one side is the customer's subjective expectation (target), on the other is the actual satisfaction of needs (actual). The best way to know whether a customer is satisfied is to ask him or her. It therefore makes sense to use a survey as the starting point for a customer satisfaction analysis.

Babtec's customer satisfaction analysis is also based on an annual survey. In this online survey, we ask our users questions about their overall satisfaction and individual questions about our processes. They have the option of answering the individual questions on an 11-point scale based on the Net Promoter Score (NPS for short).

What is the NPS? The Net Promoter Score uses a scale from 0 (unlikely) to 10 (extremely likely) to determine how likely a customer would be to recommend a provider's services to others. A score is calculated from the difference between the percentage of promoters (i.e. customers who respond with 9 or 10) and the percentage of detractors (i.e. customers who respond with 0 to 6). Indifferent customers (those who responded with 7 or 8) are excluded from the calculation. The Net Promoter Score can be an indication of how low or high customer satisfaction is.

However, the NPS alone is not sufficient to evaluate customer satisfaction, as the score neglects the specific reasons why a customer is satisfied or dissatisfied. The NPS should be combined with tools that allow a detailed root cause analysis.

To enable us to better classify the NPS of our surveys, we have additional information on the response distribution and on customer comments. In these comments, customers themselves can inform us about the reasons for their rating.

The survey is repeated annually, because ad hoc surveys based on specific situations are not sufficient for a sustainable improvement in customer satisfaction. In order to be able to track fluctuations and developments, we want to work continuously on our service quality. Our aim is to identify weaknesses in our services, develop solutions and thus improve customer satisfaction in the long term.

In the end, it is not the NP score that is decisive for the customer relationship. What counts is the satisfaction of the individual customer – and this is always subjective and individual. After we have discussed a rather negative evaluation from the survey in the department concerned, we therefore immediately seek customer contact. In a personal telephone conversation, we follow up the problem side by side with the customer, ideally already clarifying it, or finding potential for change for the future along the way.

The customer satisfaction survey therefore also makes it possible to improve individual customer relationships in the long term. Communication is the best way to do this. Our major goal is to ensure that our customers are not only satisfied, but also enthusiastic about us and our products. To achieve this, we need to know not only our strengths, but also our potential.

In order to do something good not only for our company but also for the environment in line with our mission statement, we held a social incentive during the last customer satisfaction survey. For each completed customer satisfaction survey, participating customers were given the opportunity – free of charge for them - to donate €10. At the end of the survey, they were allowed to select and support one of the various donation projects of the "Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland e.V. (BUND)". We are very pleased and would like to thank all our customers for their high level of participation, which enabled us to collect a considerable sum for the good cause.