Just Ask One Simple Question
According to an article published in The Harvard Business Review there is a high degree of correlation between sales growth and customer satisfaction scores. Well, yeah! That’s logical. Satisfied customers return to vendors who perform at a high level. Additionally they refer others so, obviously, higher levels of satisfaction should normally translate into increased sales volume. But how do you find out your companies satisfaction score?
The typical way is to survey the customers. Problem - usually very few survey forms are filled out and returned because most are time-consuming, complex affairs. The few people who return those surveys are at either end of the satisfaction spectrum, those who are very satisfied or those who are very dissatisfied.
So let’s look at goals. What we really want to measure is whether a favorable or unfavorable trend is occurring – to see whether customers are more or less satisfied then they were in the past. If the trend is down, we have to dig deeper and find out why dissatisfaction is increasing. If the trend is up it is time to rejoice, pat the people responsible on the back and continue working to keep increasing the level of customer satisfaction.
The easiest and fastest method of discovering the trend in the level of satisfaction is to ask just one question: “Were you satisfied enough with our product / service to recommend us to others?” That’s all. Just have the customer check off “yes” or “no” and mail or email it back. Over time, as data accumulates, trends in customer satisfaction will become evident.
A division of General Electric found a direct relationship between the results of this one question and sales growth. They found this satisfaction score so important that 20% of managers bonuses is tied to the results. Is the satisfaction score the pinnacle of scientific surveying? No, but it is a simple, fast, easy-to-comprehend metric that has shown to be a significant indicator of customer loyalty and future sales growth. It’s simple. Ask just one question. Use the results to see whether your customers are satisfied enough to return and refer others.
Larry Galler coaches and consults with high-performance executives, professionals, and small businesses since 1993. He is the writer of the long-running (every Sunday since November 2001) business column, "Front Lines with Larry Galler" Sign up for his free newsletter at http://www.larrygaller.com Questions??? Send an email to larry@larrygaller.com
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