Customer satisfaction has always been crucial to every business. It decides not only customer loyalty but also your business differentiation. In another way, it is precisely a key to a business success. However, not many executives and managers have created a good enough satisfaction for their customers.
I used to be very insecure about this factor when I first started my company. As an entrepreneur, I knew increasing revenue and profits for the firm was a top priority mission. But when seeing them sharply reduced and customers always notice products from other brands, I realized that I needed to change how customers think and feel about my business. Therefore, a reform with changes in quality, price, and services occurred. Until now, which has been three years since that time, it was still the best decision I have ever made.
I know that there are so many managers having troubles with fulfilling customer satisfaction, including you. That’s why in this article, I will tell you what makes customers satisfied and what changes I created to make my company grow so fast. If you have not found a solution for your business yet, it can help you. Let’s check out!
What makes customers satisfied
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A high product quality
This factor has to be mentioned first. Because without it, customers may buy your product once, but they will never come back again, no matter how great your advertising campaign or your employees’ persuading capability is. Remember Apple watch released in 2014? I don’t say that it was a failure, but obviously, it did not satisfy Apple’s customers at all. Although Tim Cook had a powerful marketing team, slow operating pace and inability to do anything without iPhone were the worst features making the watch unsuccessful.
So to create a high-quality product, you need to:
- Understand customers’ needs and wants
I’m sure you know this fact. Every product should be built on what customers’ desire. We sell what they need, not what we have. For example, before I release any new product, I always have a careful market research and quite many testimonials. In that way, most of my products always receive the best comments in the survey at the end of each year.
- Find a unique characteristic
After you have identified your clients’ needs, discover what differentiate your product. Find out the most impressive thing your product has and ask yourself how to develop it. You are the only one to know about this, so analyze the features as best as you can. You can have regular meeting with your team and brainstorm altogether to build a functional and distinctive product. I always do that whenever I come up with a new idea or want to make a brand new product.
- Build a fantastic quality control team
This team is vital in your quality building process because it is responsible for tracking every product’s mistakes and performance. Having it is synonymous with creating a lifetime warranty for your products. Therefore, you should train its members carefully about your company’s mission, vision, target customers, market, and primary products immediately. It will massively affect customer satisfaction and your profits.
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A reasonable price
Another important factor is your product’s price. Although it is not a problem of life and death, it has a direct effect on your clients’ feeling and your earnings. Just imagine you are a customer, buying a product with high-quality but cheap price always feels more triumph than an adequate price. And sometimes, you don’t have to be cheap; you only need to look cheap.
There is some information that you need to know to have the best pricing strategy
- Your target customers
This is about demographic factors, which include age, gender, income, occupation, and so on. Once you identify them, you will see which social class your clients are in and how much money they are willing to pay. Prices will be decided based on those.
- Your target revenue and expenditure
Because the price is the only element in the marketing mix that produces revenue, you need to know how much you want to earn and need to pay per month or year. They will play essential roles in forming your product’s price.
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Excellent customer services
If product quality is about what to sell, client services contain how to sell.
Human has a strange habit, which is sharing. If they like or dislike something, they will immediately share it along with their thoughts and feelings. Therefore, no matter your services are excellent or awful, they will tell their friends, family, or even acquaintances. It means when you serve one client well and satisfy him, you will meet tons of future customers.
Spreading your customer services reputation by:
- Maintain great customer relationships
It means to treat your clients not just as a partner but a real friend. Listening to them and taking care of them before, during, and after they buy your goods are most efficient ways to earn your customers’ satisfaction and trust. They will come back to your company various times later.
- Solve customer’s problems quickly
Having a solution for their issues in a short time is often higher appreciated than leaving them waiting. Once you see the problem, fix it. Your customers will consider that professional, and they always stay with someone they can trust.
- Use every department to create a terrific service
Marketing team is not the only part of creating customer service. The whole company should be involved in making it better. For example, Customer Care Center needs to call the clients after they buy your products to see if there was any problem. Or technical employees in your store should answer the customers’ questions whenever they ask, not just the sales ones. Remember, every department is a cog in a large gear, which is your firm. And customers are the center of that gear. If all of the parts fit perfect with one another, you will satisfy your clients.
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Reliability
Now you know what you need for your product, how to sell it, and earn revenue. It’s time to find out how to can create customers’ loyalty, which means to maximize their satisfaction. Nothing could be more useful than making your company reliable.
The most famous and prestigious enterprises, such as PepsiCo, Starbucks, or Pizza Hut, are all excellent at reliability for customers. I remember Pizza Hut always serve their pizza within precisely 17 minutes. I estimate it whenever I go to their store, and they have never failed. I am trying to build such reliability just like that, and here are some criteria that I base on:
- Keep your promise
The most crucial thing is always to do what you tell your clients. If you promise you would call them within one day, you do it exactly. Or if you provide a service of switching faulty goods within 48 hours, don’t make excuses. Change it immediately. Keeping promise is the fastest way for your customers to believe in your company’s reliability.
- Accept mistakes
It’s nothing ashamed when you are wrong. Accepting and admitting your mistake to customers will show your professionalism. Don’t try to deny or defend it because you will lose your clients in a blink of an eye.
- Always aim at your mission and vision
And finally, whatever you do, remember always to keep your company’s core values. I have established mine for nearly six years and still moving forward with them. And now, I have a significant number of loyal customers due to providing them with the most outstanding products and services, just like I promised. I’m sure you will gain your clients’ trust as well after paying much more attention to this.
Conclusion
Have you been writing down all of the above criteria?
I believe they are very useful for you to build customer satisfaction. Try applying them, and you will see. Furthermore, if you like my article, do share it, so that many other businesses will have a chance to grow, just like yours. And if you have any opinions or questions, please comment them in the blank below. It would be my pleasure to reply.
Lastly, thank you for reading my writing about what makes customers satisfied. Goodbye, and I hope to see you in my subsequent articles.