What do you really know about customer satisfaction?

Mike Hutchison sets the record straight about 5 of the most common customer satisfaction myths.

1. I know where I stand on customer satisfaction because I’m doing surveys.

The Truth: Surveys have many limitations and flaws. They are taken from a very small sample of your customers, most of whom are biased as being very strongly positive or negative.

In addition, most of the information collected is structured, and may tell you a score for how a customer rated an experience, but lacks the unstructured information to tell you why. Thus the information is not actionable.

2. I use NetPromoter, so I know who’s happy with my company.

The Truth: NetPromoter offers insight as to a customer’s general reflection on your brand and service. It may also shed light on some of the issues the customer experienced.

However, it’s still difficult to relate those issues back to specific interactions to know how they could have been prevented. And without a way to quantify how often the event that triggered one customer’s dissatisfaction happened across all your interactions, it’s nearly impossible to know where to focus your improvement efforts.

3. Customer satisfaction rests solely in the hands of the agents.

The Truth: Many things outside the control of the agent cause customer dissatisfaction. For example, business processes that were determined by other areas of the company have a great impact on the customer.

Also, technical issues, product changes, or cross-departmental errors (such as when a marketing campaign promises a rebate or free month’s service that doesn’t get picked up by billing) all drive call volume and upset customers.

4. I’m using all the data available to me to measure customer satisfaction.

The Truth: If you’re not measuring the events taking place across all of your captured interactions, you’re leaving information behind.

To best understand what is driving satisfaction, you need to categorise and quantify every interaction that contains statements or sentiments of dissatisfaction. Then, by breaking down the events that occur in those interactions, you can determine the root cause of the issues that drove the customer to become frustrated or upset.

5. Customer satisfaction typically boils down to First Call Resolution.

The Truth: First Call Resolution (FCR) is only one facet of customer satisfaction and is an incomplete measure of this metric. This is because it doesn’t always represent Customer Effort, which is a much more critical factor of satisfaction.

This is why it’s important to study the events taking place within the interactions. For example, a call may be resolved, but also might have involved telling the customer they have to visit a store to fix their issue, which led to frustration and dissatisfaction.

With thanks to Mike Hutchison, Vice President of Business Operations and Sales Support at Nexidia