Developing Customer Satisfaction Strategy: Complete Guide

Does it feel like figuring out what your customers want is one big guessing game? If you answered yes, you may need to work on your own unique customer satisfaction strategy. Delivering what your customers want doesn’t have to be complicated. Use our guide to learn how to set up customer satisfaction initiatives that really work.

1. Understand Your Demographic

Before you take any steps toward building your customer satisfaction strategic plan, you need to understand your target demographic. Who are you aiming to serve with your product? What do they do every day? Where do they live? How old are they? What are their pain points? 

Answering these questions will send you on the right path to developing an effective customer satisfaction strategy. Consider writing out multiple profiles—one for each type of customer you’re marketing to. Then use those personas to guide the type of customer strategy plan you build. You might even create a different customized plan for each persona, which will allow you to connect with customers on a deeper level.

2. Get Customer Feedback

Now that you’ve really considered the type of customer you want, it’s time to talk to the actual customers that you have. Does your target demographic match up with your existing customer base? 

The easiest way to get customer feedback is by creating a simple survey and sending it out via email. Ask basic demographic questions about your customers, finding out what they love about your product and asking for tips on how to improve.

3. Engage on Social Media

Social media is an essential part of any modern customer satisfaction strategy and marketing plan. Free platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can help you develop a much richer connection with your customer base and find out what your customers are thinking, without even having to ask. 

Once you’ve set up your presence on these platforms, be sure to check in daily to respond to comments, answer direct messages, and post helpful content relating to your business.

4. Read and Respond to Reviews

Your online reputation doesn’t stop with social media; online reviews are another important part of helping your business flourish. Focus on getting more reviews on platforms like Google Reviews, Facebook, and websites relevant to your industry. 

Then, be sure to respond to all reviews, even if they’re negative, to show customers that you care. Value the feedback you receive on these platforms, and take it into account when building and revising your customer satisfaction strategy.

5. Create Focus Groups

Though every company should be taking advantage of the online resources above, there’s nothing like meeting with your customers in person to see what they really think about your company. 

Regularly conduct small focus groups to dive deep into the minds of consumers and see what’s working for your brand. Remember that one session alone doesn’t fully represent all your customers, and multiple sessions can reveal trends in their changing preferences.

6. Check out the Competition

Keeping an eye on the competition requires a careful balance. You want to be informed enough to know what your competitors are doing without letting it direct every move you make. Striking this balance will allow you to stay ahead of your competitors while still setting your business apart and showing off what makes your company unique.

Make a list of competing businesses, then explore their social media pages, review sites, and websites to see what they’re doing. You can take some ideas as inspiration and even find out what isn’t working for them, but avoid blatantly copying the competition. Your customers want to shop with you because of what makes you unique and the special ways you serve your chosen audience.

7. Analyze the Data

You’ve conducted focus groups, responded to reviews and social media comments, sent out surveys, and more. But are you really listening to all of that feedback? Are you looking for patterns and prioritizing changes? 

If not, it’s time to put that valuable information to use. Use data from your website and various types of customer feedback to learn everything you can about consumer behavior, and use that information to build a more focused customer satisfaction strategy.

8. Evoke Emotion With Your Marketing

Marketing is an important element of your customer satisfaction plan, and the best marketing makes your customers feel a real connection to your brand. Whether you’re creating content for social media, email, or traditional advertising outlets, you should get your customers to relate to your message on an emotional level.

Effective marketing can spark happiness, sadness, excitement, laughter, or even anger. Carefully consider how you want consumers to feel when they read about your brand, and create a message that elicits that response.

9. Simplify the Customer Experience

What is customer experience? It’s the journey customers go through from the time they’re first introduced to your brand until they bring your product into their homes and start using it. In general, you’ll be able to attract more happy customers if you make the buying journey easy for them. You can do this by creating an omnichannel experience, making your website easy to use, and allowing for self-service whenever possible.

10. Hire the Right People

A great customer satisfaction strategy must include hiring the right people. And though you could take the time and effort to build an in-house team, sometimes it makes more sense to outsource your customer service department.

Outsourcing customer service to the right company ensures you’ll get a high level of customer satisfaction, without those tasks consuming the other work you’re known for. You’ll be able to focus on your job and let the customer service team do what they do best. 

If you’re a small business, outsourcing your customer service department will allow you to better serve your customers by reducing response times, having longer customer service hours available, serving customers in other time zones, and more.

Creating Your Strategy

Creating an effective customer service strategy can take a great deal of time and energy. But don’t take this task lightly, because your careful planning will pay off in the long run. You’ll be rewarded with higher customer satisfaction levels and devoted customers who sing your praises to their friends and family.