Satisfied customers are an important foundation for business success. As such, customer satisfaction has to be maintained and improved. Utilizing technology can be one of the effective ways to achieve this.
Closely related to consumer experience, customer satisfaction is a measure of satisfaction level that customers have towards a company’s service or product. Meanwhile, consumer experience is everything that a customer feels/experiences when interacting with a company. Although they have different definitions, customer satisfaction is highly related with consumer experience. If a customer has a good experience in the process of purchasing a service/product, it is expected that customer satisfaction will also improve.
All businesses need to maintain customer satisfaction. If the level of customer satisfaction of a business still lacks, then the company has to strategize on improving it.
Utilizing technology: key to improving customer satisfaction
To improve customer satisfaction, utilizing technology is a given need. This takes into account how the development of technology has significantly changed patterns of human behavior and everyday life. A straightforward example is today’s ease of internet access. This impacts consumer expectations towards a company’s services; consumers nowadays want quick and practical services.
Companies need to anticipate and respond to this change in expectations. Otherwise, consumers may choose to convert to a competitor that offers better services. As such, companies have to improve their services and offer a better experience according to customer’s demands. So how does technology help in fulfilling customer’s shifting expectations? Below are how technology may be utilized to improve customer satisfaction:
1. Staying connected to customers at all times
These days, standards of customer satisfaction keep getting higher. A couple of years ago, customers only expected services during workdays and work hours. But nowadays, fewer customers would be willing to patiently wait. Customers want to get in touch and receive responses from companies as quickly as possible, without limits of time and place. In other words, consumers today demand companies to provide unlimited services for 24 hours a day.
Companies need to respond to this demand in order to maintain satisfaction and retain their customers. Communication channels that are easy to access along with practical ways of doing transactions must be built and ready. This is where technology plays a large part. As an example, companies can open online shopping access and provide customer contact services with a chat bot. This enables more ease for consumers to interact with the company.
If designed and prepared well, consumers will have a positive experience. In turn, customer satisfaction can be improved and achieved.
2. Collecting as much consumer data as possible
Knowing precisely the consumers’ wants and needs can be a way to improve customer satisfaction. Hence data and information about consumers need to be collected. Back then, this can be achieved through research or manually asking consumers for their data. But those measures require much time and effort.
Nowadays utilizing technology for these data-collecting purposes is key. Companies can use analytics to automatically track their consumers’ habits and preferences. An example is the use of analytics on online shopping websites. Companies can track their customers’ activities on the website. Then customers’ transaction data will be collected, along with customers’ personal information.
With this data-collecting measure, companies gain an advantage. They can learn about their customers’ profiling more accurately. This will help in strategizing sales programs that align with the target market. As such, it is recommended that companies open up channels to gather consumer data and customer reviews. These will prove useful as evaluation material in improving customer satisfaction.
3. Building an effective customer service system
Customer satisfaction is closely related to consumer experience. To improve customer satisfaction, a company has to create a positive experience for its consumers. In order to achieve this, building and establishing an effective customer service system is a must. Build a system that is simple yet able to cater all the customers’ needs.
Here, technology utilization yet again plays a key part. For example, automation will speed up product delivery processes; an established system will help consumers have a positive experience. Other aspects can also be improved with technology. Each company has different challenges and needs, and each has to identify which are most urgent to address.
However, utilizing new technologies does not mean human touch should be forgotten. The value of interpersonal human communication is still very much needed by customers. Human interaction services have to be maintained in order to improve customer satisfaction.
The three measures above are some solutions for improving customer satisfaction. The key is utilizing technology to support services, making services more practical and accessible to consumers.
