Making Customer Satisfaction and Complaints Management THE Priority!

Making customer satisfaction a top priority is essential. Organizations must prioritize customer focus as it is a mandatory requirement according to ISO 9001 standard. However, organizations must not over-miss customer claims as they are essential for continuous improvement and for brand image. A customer can also be satisfied if an organization reacts quickly to their claim.

What are customer satisfaction and claims? How to measure customer satisfaction? How to treat customer claims? 

Let us find out the answers throughout this article.

What are Customer Satisfaction and Claims all about?

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is the assessment and judgment made by customers regarding their interactions with a company, product, or service. Evaluating customer satisfaction commonly involves methods like surveys, feedback collection, customer reviews, and ratings.

Customer satisfaction plays a crucial role in driving continuous improvement within organizations. By consistently meeting or exceeding customer expectations, companies will retain existing customers and attract new ones through positive word-of-mouth. Satisfied customers are more likely to become loyal advocates, contributing to long-term business success. Additionally, customer feedback and insights provide valuable information for organizations to identify areas for improvement and innovation. By actively seeking and addressing customer needs, organizations can enhance their products, services, and processes, ultimately driving growth and staying ahead in a competitive market. Therefore, prioritizing customer satisfaction is a key element for continuous improvement and overall organizational success.

Customer Claims

Customer claims are also important for continuous improvement within an organization. They involve addressing and resolving customer concerns, and issues related to product defects, service failures, billing problems, or any dissatisfaction experienced by the customer. Resolving customer claims effectively is essential for maintaining customer satisfaction and fostering positive customer relationships.

How to Measure Customer Satisfaction?

Measuring customer satisfaction allows for determining the level of satisfaction and understanding how customers evaluate the overall performance of an organization and each of its key expectations.

The customer satisfaction measurement helps evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the company, and above all, triggers an improvement plan and measures the effectiveness of the services and products.

There are several methods commonly used to measure customer satisfaction. However, each organization must clearly define the aim and scale of each adopted measure. For example, a company can measure customers’ views and opinions on a global scale, with specific and defined key elements, or based on a certain event.

Moreover, regardless of the adopted method and scale for customer satisfaction measurement, one must be careful to be precise and describe the aim of the survey, have clear questions understandable by everyone, be short (time is money), and always leave a commentary section available.

Here are some popular approaches to measuring customer satisfaction:

• Surveys. They are frequently used to measure customer satisfaction. They can be administered through different channels, emailing, online forms, or mobile apps. Surveys consist of rating scales, multiple-choice questions, and open-ended questions, allowing for the collection of both quantitative and qualitative feedback.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS is a popular metric for evaluating customer satisfaction and loyalty. It revolves around a single question posed to customers: "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product/service to others?" Customers' responses determine whether they fall into the categories of promoters, passives, or detractors. The NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
• Customer feedback and reviews. Gathering customer feedback and reviews through online platforms, social media, or direct communication channels can offer valuable insights into their satisfaction levels. By monitoring and analyzing the sentiment expressed by customers in these channels, it becomes possible to assess overall satisfaction.
• Customer satisfaction indexes. Various standardized indexes such as the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), which is recognized by the U.S. federal government as the gold standard, provide benchmarks and measurement frameworks to assess customer satisfaction across industries or specific sectors.
• Customer retention and repeat business. By keeping track of customer retention rates and examining patterns of repeat business, it is possible to gauge customer satisfaction levels. Satisfied customers tend to maintain their business relationship with a company and become loyal, repeat customers.
• Customer satisfaction score (CSAT). CSAT is a metric used to measure customer satisfaction based on their experiences with a product, service, or company. It is typically obtained through surveys where customers rate their satisfaction on a numerical scale. The CSAT score represents the percentage of customers who gave positive ratings, indicating their level of satisfaction. This metric helps businesses understand customer satisfaction, identify areas for improvement, and track changes over time.

When measuring customer satisfaction, it is crucial to select methods that are aligned with your specific business goals, target audience, and available resources. Combining multiple measurement methods can offer a more comprehensive and well-rounded understanding of customer satisfaction.

How to Handle Customer Claims?

Effectively and methodically addressing a claim helps maintain customer trust, regardless of any mistakes made, and also fosters a demanding management style within the organization, emphasizing continuous improvement.

Before we discuss how to handle a customer claim, there must be certain elements identified upstream for guaranteeing a fast response and quick actions after receiving a customer complaint.

Each organization must have a clearly defined procedure to treat claims, usually drafted by the Quality professionals/department. The procedure document or record defines what are all the sorts of claims that can be registered, and define the severity and criticality of each type. Afterward, in the procedure for customer claims handling, responsibilities from recoding to treating the claim must be well defined the “who, how and when” (person responsible, how to treat and analyze the claim, the time frame).

These are general guidelines, of course, each company depending on its activity and industry will have different customer claims handling procedures. However, these procedures must be regularly updated depending on the severity of the claims, and the compliance rate with internal procedures must be always monitored.

Here is an example of 4 steps to handle customer claims:

Step 1. Identify and record the complaint.

The customer complaint process involves multiple steps for effective resolution. Customers submit their complaints through various channels like phone, email, website, or in-person, and the company should offer multiple avenues to accommodate their preferences. Once a complaint is received, the company records and documents relevant information, including the customer's contact details, complaint nature, dates, and any supporting documentation provided. Prompt acknowledgment follows, either through automated responses or personal communication, reassuring the customer that their complaint has been received and is under review.

Step 2. Treatment and customer notification.

The company proceeds with a thorough investigation, gathering any necessary additional information and analyzing the root cause of the issue while assessing its validity. Once the investigation is complete, the company determines an appropriate resolution, which may involve addressing the specific issue, providing compensation, offering a refund, or implementing corrective actions to prevent similar problems from occurring in the future. Prompt and clear communication becomes crucial as the company notifies the customer about the resolution, explaining the steps taken to address the complaint and providing any applicable remedies or compensations.

Step 3. Corrective actions.

Claims are mostly handled by the quality department. Once the complaint is resolved, the quality department launches a set of corrective actions which are assigned to each employee related to the complaint and the new measures. It is important to record all the claims to have a global view of all sorts of complaints. This will help to detect if there are recurrent problems, and therefore take important actions to avoid new customer complaints.

Step 4. Reporting, continuous improvement, and follow-up.

At the end of the procedure, a report is issued detailing the complaint from its generation to its resolution. This is important as customer claims are learning opportunities to identify areas for improvement. The quality department analyzes customer claims collectively to detect trends, recurring issues, or systematic problems.

Following the resolution of the complaint, the company may initiate a follow-up with the customer to ensure their satisfaction and collect feedback regarding the resolution process. This valuable feedback serves as a means to identify areas for improvement in the company's complaint-handling process.

Finally, it is vital to handle customer claims with professionalism, empathy, and a strong dedication to finding effective solutions. This approach is crucial for nurturing customer satisfaction and fostering long-term loyalty. And never forget to respond promptly.

Enhancing the Customer Satisfaction and Claims

Digital technology offers numerous benefits and opportunities to facilitate the customer complaint process and to easily collect data regarding customer satisfaction.

Online complaint submission provides an easy-to-use platform or mobile app that allows customers to submit complaints conveniently, anytime, and from anywhere. Moreover, an automated complaint management system enables efficient tracking, categorization, and assignment of complaints to the relevant departments and/or employees.

Relying on digital tools will provide the feature “real-time notification” to send alerts to customers, acknowledging their complaint submission and providing updates on its progress, which helps to maintain transparent and proactive communication. In addition, a single digital platform will allow the centralization of all the complaints in a single database. This centralized information will allow easy access, analysis, and retrieval of information and can be even used for statistical analysis. This process can easily help with the identification of areas for improvement.

Digital technology can provide data analytics tools, companies can analyze customer complaint data, pinpoint root causes, and generate valuable reports. These insights serve as a guide for decision-making and fuel continuous improvement initiatives.

Finally, with the aid of digital tools and customer satisfaction, businesses can collect automated customer feedback through surveys, online reviews, social media monitoring, and sentiment analysis. This feedback provides valuable insights to enhance products, services, and overall customer experience.

Embracing digital technology empowers businesses to enhance the efficiency, speed, and accuracy of their customer satisfaction and complaint processes. This, in turn, results in elevated customer satisfaction levels, strengthened brand loyalty, and a continuous drive for improvement.

Today, it has become crucial to recognize the importance of customer satisfaction and complaint management. They have a direct impact on the company's reputation, customer trust, and loyalty. In today's business landscape, digital technology plays a significant role in driving continuous improvement and serves as a powerful tool to enhance overall performance. Finally, customer satisfaction and commitment are highly and positively influenced by the CSR strategy adopted by the organizations. Therefore, each company now has an additional responsibility to consider to maintain its customer loyalty.

Deliver excellent customer experiences and take control of customer feedback