Customer Satisfaction: How to Gauge and Foster 

Measuring and nurturing customer satisfaction is good business. It promotes mutually-beneficial relationships with people who use or may decide to use your products or services. 

These highly-satisfied customers add value to your business by:

• Making regular purchases 
• Amplifying your brand messaging
• Endorsing your business publicly  
• Referring people they know to you 
• Giving pertinent feedback to help you improve

Many tools for collecting feedback and measuring customer satisfaction are available. Beginning the process with clear goals helps companies keep track of priorities and avoid ending up with data that lacks critical customer information. 

How to best measure customer sentiment

Understanding customer sentiment is not a new concept. Since its early years, S&B Finishing has made a commitment to surveying current and potential customers. Acting on their responses has supported S&B in its process of continuous improvement. 

Kenny Spielman, Founder and President of S&B Finishing, sees this commitment as a key contributor to the company retaining such a significant number of customers and suppliers over the 47 years that the company has been in business. 

The most effective way to be aware of customer preferences and opinions is by gathering data on various aspects of customer experience. Companies gain more precise insight when they go beyond just the most obvious customer experiences, such as following a purchase. 

Surveys 

Prior to its current customer satisfaction survey using Survey Monkey, S&B Finishing used printed survey cards. The cards were comprehensive, covering key areas important to their customers. Both the past and current versions provide a space for customers to write comments and feature clear, concise wording. 

SURVEY CARD from S&B Finishing

Rate the following (1= Poor: 5= Best)                      

____Overall quality of work performed                                  

 ____Quality of Packaging                                                                

____ On-Time Delivery                                                         

____Quality of Customer Service                                       

____Personal Attention Received                             

____Telephones at S &B                                                                  

Circle Y for Yes, N for No

1. Do you have an S&B brochure?

2. May we add you to S&B’s mailing list?

3. Do you require ISO certified finishers?

4. Is your facility ISO certified?

5. Have you ever toured S&B?

6. Would you like to tour S&B?

Online communication

Keeping tabs on your business’s online presence helps identify customer trends and sentiments whether through comments, website analytics and direct messages. Direct messages submitted through the S&B website or email are taken very seriously by Spielman who responds immediately to acknowledge the customer. The conversation is forwarded to the corresponding team member who reviews the feedback and takes care of the issue. 

Interactions with employees and focus groups

Daily interactions with customers are fertile ground for getting candid and pertinent feedback. Employees who engage directly with customers often have firsthand knowledge of recurring issues and specific needs that customers may voice. Feedback that comes through customer-facing employees plays a crucial role in service improvements. 

Live chat transcripts record precisely what customers are asking and issues that arise regularly. Interviews or small focus groups can reveal honest opinions and nuanced experiences that survey numbers alone might not capture. 

In-person surveys and questionnaires 

Another best practice is to adapt feedback-seeking practices to the current needs of your particular industry or business. The S&B sales team still takes the time to conduct an annual in-person survey with each customer. 

Questions designed to respect the customer’s valuable time while helping the company plan for the future include:

• How often would you like personal visits from the sales team?
• Do you expect to do more, less, or about the same amount of business with S&B in the upcoming year?

Other questions help the team provide the exact information and service that customers need. Finally, directly asking for complaints opens up communication that supports improvement and builds loyalty. 

• Are you familiar with all the services S&B offers? 
• What other services would you like S&B to provide (assembly, packaging)?
• Do you have any complaints about S&B (specific areas that need improvement)? 

Follow through on customer satisfaction feedback

Respecting the time customers take to fill out surveys and give suggestions is crucial. A great way to do this is by promptly acting on viable customer requests and suggestions. This builds trust and can even help retain clients who have previously encountered challenges. 

Having systems in place supports companies in making improvements based on feedback.

The systems in place at S&B include its ISO certification process and participation in an industry 20 group with other finishing shops in non-competing markets. This has been an excellent resource for specific technical feedback that is difficult to find elsewhere. Shared suggestions and best practices have helped the participating shops support each other in making important improvements. 

In whatever way that makes sense for your industry, Spielman urges companies to follow through with making improvements.  It is the game changer to gaining and maintaining highly-satisfied customers.