What difference does satisfaction make?

Some time ago, we read a survey from US thought leader Rain Today(1) on “How Clients Buy”. Every year, they ask buyers of 8 service areas (accounting and financial consulting; architecture, engineering, and construction services; human resources consulting; IT consulting and services; legal services; management consulting; marketing, advertising, and PR; and training services) how they find out about potential service providers and what factors influence their decision to choose one provider over another.

Referrals and general awareness about a company still lead, of course, when it comes to how purchasers to initially identify and learn more about providers.

If you’ve been reading our columns regularly, you’ll know that managing referrals well is a bit of an art, and that we recommend a structured system of education and follow-up to make sure you get the most out of this valuable strategy.

Perhaps surprisingly, the next most important way prospects decide who to buy from is some kind of personal interaction: seminars, lunch-and-learns,conferences and events. For those of you who think regular advertising is enough, this is a bit of a wake-up call: don’t underestimate the power of face-to-face communications. You only need one great presentation to make a memorable impression.

So you’ve got prospects in the door, and you are doing great work at converting them to profitable paying clients. The next step is to keep those clients, and turn them into a robust referral machine.

This is where client satisfaction comes in. Did you know that almost no clients who are extremely satisfied will leave you and go elsewhere, whereas over 80 percent of clients who are only somewhat satisfied – who rate your service 4 out of 5, or 8 out of 10 – may be completely willing to switch?

Think about it! Most of your business would be happy to switch to another company…and that other company is probably knocking on their door right now.
Why? Because they think they will get exactly the same utility from any reputable firm, but there’s a good chance they’ll get people who are more willing to listen to their needs, faster turnaround on their requests, better communication and a more customized solution to their problems.

Here are the steps to creating and installing a customer satisfaction survey.
1. Send a personal letter to every client letting them know you will be starting to measure customer satisfaction, and that this information will impact how you do business in the future. Don’t send a form letter! Every letter should be personally addressed and started “Dear (customer name)”. You may also wish to phone people ; for example, the sales team could call their individual customers personally.
2. If you can, use an on-line tool like Survey Monkey or Constant Contact. These are easy-to-use, inexpensive solutions that tabulate your data for you.
3. Identify what you want to measure. Then, create a series of about 15 statements that customers could agree or disagree with; for example,”I always get quick response when I call with a problem.” or “My work is always delivered on time.”
4. Set up your questionnaire by asking customers to rate each statement on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 means “I don’t agree with this statement at all” and 5 means “I agree with this statement completely.” This way, your customers will tell you how they really experience your company.Send out your questionnaires to everybody you previously mailed. Alternatively, you can ask a third party to conduct your research by phone; we don’t recommend doing this yourself as you will tend to get biased responses (people will either be too kind, or too rough!)
6. Tabulate the answers. Look for patterns. How many of your largest, most profitable Ideal Clients rate particular questions 4 or even worse? That’s a big red flag, and you are in danger of losing them.

If you believe that customer satisfaction comes from simply doing your job, we hope this will change your mind. You must start to measure client satisfaction today, and identify who you can lose tomorrow.

1 RainToday.com is published by Wellesley Hills Group and is the premier online source for insight, advice,and tools for growing your service business.