Auteure : Esther Gagneux
The brands try to develop new ways of listening to their clients and of measuring their satisfaction. These programs are pragmatic solutions to answer to the expectations of the consumers. Moreover, they are a good tool for external communication.
The opinion of the client is useful for the company
Having the opinion of the client has become necessary, because it allows a detection of dysfunctions and helps improve. Thanks to their opinions, clients feel that they are listened to.
The Belgian bank Belfius has developed a system of benchmarking the quality of its services. The clients have to download the mobile app of the bank, and they receive a form just after they leave the bank. Thanks to this system, the bank can contact the clients who are not satisfied. The bank now uses the satisfaction rating as a key indicator. It shows the growing attention brands give to the client’ satisfaction.
The customers’ opinion is now a given, completely integrated with the e-shopping websites for example, like Amazon: it can be a tool for more customer confidence. But it is also an expectation of the clients, who want to be listened by the brands.
Some methods of measuring
The methods to measure customer’ satisfaction are more and more numerous. One of the most used practices is the questionnaire sent by email, after an online purchase.
The Net Promoter Score, an indicator created in 2003 in the United States, is used by companies and is developing considerably. It is a simple question like “How likely is it that you would recommend this brand to a friend or colleague?” The customers answer on a 0-to-10 point rating scale, and are then divided into three categories:
- Promoters, who are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others.
- Passives, who are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.
- Detractors, who are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.
Thanks to NPS, companies can see the evolution of the customer’ satisfaction in time.
One of the trends is to get the opinion of the consumer directly at the selling point. This is done with many different methods: terminals, touch pads… Many brands use them, such as Carrefour, Quick, Orange, SNCF, etc.
The client is “the boss”
Pierre Villeneuve, Director of the consumers’ relationship of Ikea France, says that he is the ambassador and the lawyer of the clients in the company. He goes as far as saying that “the client is the boss”: it is the client who decides what goes right and what goes wrong, and the brand cannot present its arguments; it has to adapt to what the client wants.
To have this important point of view of the client, Ikea uses a quantitative method, with surveys. Every time a client makes his payment, he is asked whether he was satisfied or not. On the website, the clients are asked to mark their experience. Once a year, to improve this study of the satisfaction, a quantitative online survey with a questionnaire is done.
But they also use the qualitative dimension: there are terminals in the shops on which the clients can write comments. All the writing elements of the clients (mails, Facebook posts, etc) are analysed through a tool of semantic analysis, which makes the keywords of satisfaction and dissatisfaction appear clearly.
These tools are used in all the countries where Ikea is present, which allows a comparison between different countries.
Pierre Villeneuve explains that they do not want to just listen to the client, but also to have a conversation with him. For that objective, they have the target of replying to all e-mails within 24 hours, to Facebook messages within one hour and to Tweets within 20 minutes.
All these tools are made in order to answer to the fact that the consumer is more and more demanding, but also more and more volatile, because he compares products and services.
Qualivew conseil offers to introduce a question at the end of customer satisfaction questionnaire, asking to the customer if they agree to be contacted by a consultant in order to understand better their opinion. This way is very good to get the context and to involved loyal customers to help the brand or company they are attached to.