Measuring customer satisfaction: 7 simple methods

Dissatisfied customers report their negative experience, on average, 8 to 11 times in their acquaintances’ circle. These frustrated customers not only harm your image but also on your sales.

After all, acquiring new customers almost always costs more than keeping an existing customer, and negative reviews may deter potential customers. To recognize earlier when your customers are dissatisfied and to be able to intervene, we present seven simple methods for measuring customer satisfaction.

Satisfied customers are worth their weight in gold! They will probably buy from you again and because you recommend them to your friends, acquaintances, and business partners.

In this table, you can see seven ways to measure customer satisfaction at a glance, including a short description. In the following text, I will go into each of the methods in more detail.

MethodsMeasurement
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)Satisfaction on a scale
Customer-Effort-Score (CES)Effort on scale
Net-Promoter-Score (NPS)Recommendation on scale
Customer satisfaction surveys(Comprehensive) questionnaires
Social Media MonitoringTone of Voice
Rating portalsSchool grades or stars
Personal conversationDirect feedback

1. Customer-Satisfaction-Score (CSAT)

As the name suggests, the Customer Satisfaction Score is used to measure the satisfaction of your customers. This key figure is expressed as a percentage. Customers choose a value on a scale from 1 to 5, whereby the highest number on the scale always represents the most satisfaction.

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Instead of numbers, terms are often used to which the respective figures are assigned in the background.

Calculation, advantages, and disadvantages of the CSAT

How is the customer satisfaction score calculated?

Customers are considered to be satisfied if they have indicated a value of 4 or 5. These two evaluation options are included in the calculation of the CSAT value. You divide the absolute number of people who gave you 4 or 5 by the number of all respondents and multiplied this value by 100 to get a result in %.

What are the advantages of the CSAT? An easy and fast way to measure satisfaction

What are the disadvantages of CSAT? No differentiation between value 4 and 5

2. Customer Effort Score (CES)

The Customer Effort Score measures how much effort your customer has to solve a problem or interact with your company. For example, HubSpot always sends out a customer effort survey after customer service has answered a query. Typically there are 1-7 or 1-5 – the higher the value, the greater the effort.

Of course, a content strategy will help much more.

Calculation, advantages and disadvantages of the CES

How is the Customer Effort Score calculated? The calculation can be done in two different ways:

Some of the scores divided by the number of counts to obtain an average score.

The second variant is very similar to the calculation of the NPS, but the CES wants to get the lowest possible result. First, categorize your values. Let’s stick to the example with the benefits 1 to 7:

  • Small effort: 1 and 2
  • Moderate effort: 3 and 4
  • High bid: 5 to 7
  • Subtract from the high bid in percent the low energy in percent. The value obtained ranges from -100 to +100, where the smaller, the better.

What are the advantages of the CES? The result obtained is precise and relates to a very concrete interaction with your company.

What are the disadvantages of CES? This advantage can also be a disadvantage. You don’t have the big picture in mind (the overall interaction), but always only single points of contact.

3. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Another way to measure the satisfaction of your customers is Net-Promoter-Score. Of the three methods already presented, this is probably the best known. The critical figure collected here refers to the extent to which your customers recommend your company to others. A typical scale is based on values between 0 (improbable) and 10 (very likely).

Calculation, advantages and disadvantages of the NPS

As already mentioned, the calculation is quite similar to that of the CES. Again, you divide the answer options into categories:

  • Values between 0 and 6 are “detractors
  • Indications of 7 and 8 are “indifferent”.
  • Indications of 9 and 10 are “promoters

First, you determine what percentage of detractors and what percentage of promoters are. The indifference is not considered further. Then you subtract the detractors from the sponsors and get an NPS. Your NPS can be between -100 and +100 – the higher, the better.

What are the advantages of the NPS? The NPS invites you to answer and is easy to measure. Furthermore, NPS is associated with growth.

What are the disadvantages of NPS? The time between survey and analysis is often too long, and the samples are usually tiny.

4. Customer satisfaction surveys

After these three ways of measuring customer satisfaction, which is linked to very “hard figures,” things are now getting a little softer.

Indirect contact, this is always one of those things when people are asked to give feedback. That’s why written, and anonymous surveys are very suitable for obtaining honest answers.

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There are necessarily three different types of customer satisfaction surveys:

E-mail Survey: Customers receive a questionnaire that precisely asks for the reasons for satisfaction and dissatisfaction in individual areas of cooperation. Such an inquiry is often quite comprehensive. With HubSpot’s e-mail tool, you can send such e-mails to your customers fully automated after a particular time.

More about E-mail marketing.

In-App Survey: You probably all know this kind of survey. Often these are “Would you like to rate this app now?” pop-ups. A feedback function is commonly integrated directly into the app.

Website Survey: Through a pop-up or call to action, website visitors are often asked to rate the website’s satisfaction.

Sometimes these three satisfaction surveys are also combined with the CSAT, the CES, or the NPS. For example, to find out an NPS in an e-mail.

5. Social Media Monitoring

There are many different use cases to monitor your social media channels. One of the purposes of monitoring can be to measure customer satisfaction via the Tone of Voice. The overall question is: In what tonality is my company contacted or written about in social media?

To get an assessment of this, it is advisable to be in regular contact with your Social Media Manager and to take up frequent questions or points of criticism. Tools such as swat.io make your work easier. Sentiments for individual interactions can be assigned here, making it easier to evaluate the Tone of Voice.

6. Personal conversation

Old but gold is the personal conversation about measuring the satisfaction of your customers. Compared to anonymous surveys using scores, which often take weeks to evaluate, you receive immediate feedback with more in-depth insight. You can find out more about the reasons for satisfaction or dissatisfaction and can react directly to the input.

As mentioned earlier in the text, it may be the case that customers shy away from personal feedback and are therefore not completely honest in direct conversation. Therefore, try to evaluate which approach will be better received by your customers and adapt the method to individual customers if necessary.

7. Evaluate possibilities on third party sites

For example, Google is a rating option that is relevant for almost every page on the Internet. Apart from this, customers can also indicate their satisfaction and dissatisfaction on websites specific to your business area.

If you run a restaurant, for example, Tripadvisor, Mjam, Lieferando, etc. would be a good example. Third-party sites where reviews can be submitted. Therefore, find out which third party sites are relevant to your business and keep an eye on how these sites report your company. Ideally, your company is represented on the most important of these third-party sites and reacts actively to criticism and praise.

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Attract – Engage – Delight: A model for customer satisfaction

Measuring your customers’ satisfaction is essential to be able to react to frustration as early as possible. But how can you stay one step ahead in this process and proactively promote customer satisfaction?

HubSpot sees inbound marketing as a dynamic process in the form of a flywheel. This flywheel stores rotational energy and thus feeds itself. In English: once energy is put into it, the engine runs virtually by itself.

There are three different phases in the flywheel: Attract, Engage, and delight. The philosophy in inbound marketing is that potential customers are attracted first (attract), with whom interaction occurs in the next step (engage). And this interaction inspires (delight). It inspires so much (every single time) that potential customers are always happy to return to your website and then buy from you when you are ready.

With this model, you can sustainably increase the quality of customer and potential customer interactions with your company and ensure excellent customer experiences that translate into positive feedback.