Eva is the perfect customer: she is thrilled about buying a new bag. She shares her enthusiasm with her friends, in the real-life through stories and online through social media. At last, she also leaves a positive product evaluation.

As a shop owner, you want as many Evas as possible, don’t you? But if your customer satisfaction is a little lacking, how do you improve it?

To answer this question, we have prepared 6 tips for increasing customer satisfaction.

1. Working more purposefully through Customer Analysis

Happy customers lead to higher sales because if you are satisfied with your shopping experience, you will buy it again. But if customers do not come to you in the first place, it may be because your company does not have a customer focus.

In order to find this focus, the creation of a buyer persona might be helpful. By interviewing and analyzing your existing customers, you can create a perfect customer who represents your target group.

It is particularly important to determine the problems and wishes of your buyer persona in order to align your business with them. To illustrate the buyer persona with a name and to trace his or her customer journey are the first steps in the right direction.

How does the customer behave, which stumbling blocks could he or she fall over, and what ultimately motivates him or her to buy, are central questions that should be asked? Building up upon these findings, the structure and the content of the shop should be adapted to the buyer persona.

2. Communication on a par

The attitude people are having towards the shop can be controlled. If, let’s say Eva represents the buyer persona, one should communicate with her in a comprehensive manner.

This can be done by using stimuli that trigger certain reactions in her. These can be small things, such as:

• The use of target group-oriented language for product descriptions or texts.
• Photos of styling combinations because Eva tends to buy whole sets.
• The insertions of social share buttons because Eva loves to share things on Instagram.

By considering and using such means you show empathy for your customers and win them over.

3. Happy Employees = Happy Customers

The calculation can be that simple. Hence, it is important to ensure the satisfaction of your own employees. Employees who love their jobs not only increase their own productivity, but they also raise the well-being of customers when interacting with them.

Employee satisfaction can be increased, for example, through health-promoting workplaces, sufficient light, a fruit selection at the office, sports programs, feedback discussions, further training opportunities, and fair salaries.

Further, it makes sense to offer customer communication training for the employees, which leads to employees becoming more confident in dealing with customers:

• Instead of saying “I don’t know”, it is better to say “Let me check this with one of my colleagues for you”.
• Instead of saying “the product is sold out”, rather say “The product is currently not available. May I write down your email address to inform you about the availability”.

4. Being available and compulsory

The customer appreciates the service even more if it is precise, fast, and easy. Thus, important tools simplifying everyday work should not be dispensed.

A live chat function helps customers to contact employees in case of questions or problems. Automated answer email traffic, for instance, signals to the person asking the question within a few minutes that his or her concern is received by the system and is taken care of.

Such expectations should always be met or even exceeded. That is, by responding to the customer within a few minutes; contrary to what the customer expected. In this way, the customer creates a positive association with your company. This prevents a negative gap between expectations and reality.

5. Reciprocity – give more, get back more

Self-organization, self-motivation, and training of employees, however, are not the only things that lead to customer satisfaction. Rather, the employee must feel connected to the company and have the feeling that he or she is understood and his needs are met.

Conclusively, it is helpful to offer the shop visitors even more than just the products. This can be done by adding an additional blog, which informs the interested parties about all topics concerning the offered product or the industry. Helpful links to product pages or background information about the company have the same effect.

It is also highly appreciated to send a surprise to newsletter subscribers – be it a discount or exclusive material.

6. Using dissatisfied customers as an opportunity

If, despite all efforts, you happen to experience complaints – do not bury your head in the sand! An open ear and more importantly open communication help in such situations. In order to find out reasons for dissatisfaction, you engage with the customer. The Net Promoter System can be a helpful tool. By measuring customer satisfaction at several interaction points, so-called touchpoints, it can determine both negative and positive experiences throughout the entire journey.

The customer feedback is based on a score along a scale from 0 (don’t recommend) to 10 (highly recommend) and on comments to explain the rating. Afterward, the AI-based system analyzes customer feedback within seconds and categorizes it into different classes. This enables online retailers to immediately identify dissatisfied customers, and reasons for their dissatisfaction and allows them to approach the customers.

This provides another opportunity to convince the customer of the shop’s professionalism. On the one hand, the system allows to immediately respond to dissatisfied customers in order to win them back, and on the other hand, it allows online merchants to discover their risk issues and thus optimize their online shop. Also, customers get the feeling that their opinions are important to the company and feel valued. With personalized marketing measures, dissatisfied buyers can then be satisfied again.

Conclusion of our tips

As you can see, no complicated measures are needed to make customers a little happier. If you follow these tips, you will clearly see an increase in satisfaction. Whether in positive product reviews or not is at this point secondary because as long as the shop continues to inspire customers, more happy customers will follow.

Stefanie Konkel