Measuring and Improving Customer Experience to Increase Profits

Business executives and managers understand that happy customers are the key to strong profits, so it follows that the majority of businesses have employed customer surveys to learn how to improve their customers’ experiences. Companies that follow best practices gather useful information about how to improve their businesses and products and do not alienate their customers through the survey experience.

Properly worded customer survey questions work for a business in multiple ways. First, they show customers that the business cares about how they feel and what they think. Secondly, they encourage customers to help the business by giving valuable and honest feedback. Thirdly, they illicit responses which give businesses insight into the customer experience and the ways it may be improved.

At NBRI, our customer survey experts are organizational psychologists who have extensive knowledge and experience researching what motivates customers and how best to foster their loyalty to the business. We have a deep understanding of customers. This means we can help you learn how to keep your customers satisfied and how to translate customer satisfaction into increased profits.

Satisfied, Engaged Customers lead to Increased Profits

Through well-designed and executed customer surveys, businesses learn how to exceed customer expectations and achieve customer engagement, which is defined as: “a customer’s emotional or psychological attachment to a brand, product, or company”. Customers give a lot of thought to purchases, including researching products and companies, asking questions, and relying on customer reviews. Most purchases are also emotional investments and customers are more likely to invest in companies to which they feel emotionally connected.

A high level of customer engagement is key to increasing profits in any industry:

• Restaurant — casual dining: Fully engaged customers make 56% more visits per month than actively disengaged customers.
• Restaurant — fast food: Fully engaged customers make 29% more visits per month than actively disengaged customers.
• Hospitality: Fully engaged hotel guests spend 46% more per year than actively disengaged guests.
• Insurance: Fully engaged policy owners purchase 22% more types of insurance products than actively disengaged policy owners.

Satisfied Customers Work for You

In an article entitled “The Customer Experience Imperative: How to Justify the Investment” featured by Forbes, the importance of Customer Experience (CX) is demonstrated: “…stock prices for the portfolio of CX leaders (the top 10) outperformed the portfolio of CX laggards (the bottom 10) and the S&P 500 over the last decade. CX leaders had a cumulative total return of 107.5%, while the S&P 500 had a cumulative total return of 72.3%. Conversely, laggards posted a total return over the same period of just 27.6%—45 points lower than the broader market.”

A strong customer experience is more important than ever before because customers can quickly disseminate positive—or negative—reviews to a very large audience in just moments. The key is to understand what motivates your customers and what they view as a positive customer experience, and then exceed it. Walt Disney said: “Do what you do so well that they want to see it again and bring their friends.”

An effective customer experience survey program shows businesses exactly what their customers want by encouraging them to give thoughtful, insightful responses. Through the research into your business, products, and customer base, NBRI survey experts are able tap into your customers’ motivations in a way that tells you exactly what you can do to improve the customer experience.

Satisfied Customers lead to Satisfied Investors

Studies have shown that improving customer satisfaction gives institutional investors more confidence in a business. According to ScienceDaily, a research group run by Jaakko Aspara, who is a professor in the Department of Marketing at Aalto University School of Business in Finland, “improved customer satisfaction with a company causes institutional investors to increase their ownership in that firm and has a positive impact on share value.” Investors are more likely to put more money into companies with strong customer satisfaction reputations, and they are also likely to reduce ownership in companies where customer satisfaction is weak.

Are your Customers Satisfied?

It’s vitally important to measure the level of customer satisfaction in your business because increased customer satisfaction and engagement leads to increased profits. There are many companies that promise to provide effective customer surveys, but NBRI is the only customer survey company that employs organizational psychologists who have dedicated their careers to understanding customer behavior to help you write and interpret surveys designed to glean the most useful information from your unique customer base. Contact us today to learn how we can help you improve your customer experience and increase your profits with a custom customer survey program.