Customer satisfaction essentially measures whether you met their expectations from the products or services you provide. 89% of consumers have been reported to have moved to a competitor based on poor customer experience, emphasising the importance of meeting customer expectations and making sure they are satisfied in the process.
Here are some tips to help you improve customer satisfaction in the services industry.
What benefits can customer satisfaction lead to?
If you can facilitate great customer satisfaction and a memorable experience, you could benefit from:
- Improved brand loyalty – customers are more likely to become loyal to your brand if you offer high quality services and go the extra mile towards helping them out
- A long lasting relationship with your customers – leading to repeat purchasing and increased trustworthiness with your company
- Boosted basket value – happier customers are more likely to spend more. This presents you with the perfect opportunity to cross and upsell. If you are a IT consultancy for instance, if you notice that your customers tend to buy a particular group of software modules together, why not offer them with bundle pricing?
To find out more benefits of high customer satisfaction and providing great experiences, read our blog post here.
Now let’s look at some top tips of how you can achieve this...
1. Knowing your customers
No matter the size of your organisation, it’s vital in the professional services industry to know what each of your customers want so you can provide expertise in specific problem areas and increase the value you offer. Know them better than they know themselves and you will not only fully understand their requirements, but you can personalise their overall customer experience.
How can you get to know your customers better?
- Listen to your customers – with 74% of UK customers identifying word of mouth as a key decision maker, it’s essential to ensure that their pain points are dealt with effectively. Through actively listening to their concerns, such as the time, budget and project deliverables, this can avoid negative customer experience and presents added value to increase positive word of mouth
- Understand your customers better – with consistent communication across all departments, through a CRM system for instance, your team can personalise each interaction they have with a customer. Quick access to data such as their location, company size and project progress allows you to make you make timely, more informed decisions on-the-spot. In other words, you can be proactive rather than reactive. More on this in our next tip…
2. Be proactive
Being proactive can influence the outcome of customer satisfaction in many ways. For starters, it can show a commitment towards providing them the best service your business can offer, alongside establishing trust so you can better understand their needs for future projects.
When someone interacts with your business, you should acknowledge their concerns, such as the timeframe, budgets, and the outcome of the project. But what tools can we use to identify issues before the customer realises?
A CRM system
A CRM system that’s integrated with your professional services automation (PSA) software means project and customer data can be centralised. This allows key data to be accessed across departments, teams and functions to improve future customer interactions.
Professional services automation (PSA) software
A PSA tool allows you to have an end-to-end view of your project, including the timeframe, expenses and the status of tasks that are required for completion. How does this allow you to be proactive? You can set up automation triggers that indicate the progress of your tasks. This will save you time and boost satisfaction as you can keep your customer informed of any updates to their timeline, as well as keeping your workforce fully informed of any unprecedented changes to drive efficiency.
You can also be proactive by adding value to existing clients. In the services industry, this allows you to retain your competitive advantage as you can constantly offer value with new software or packages. In July 2021, 14.9% of customers in the UK experienced a problem regarding their service with an organisation, so provide solutions to issues surrounding other areas of their operations and you can increase satisfaction with a value-added approach.
3. Integrate your core business systems
One way to enhance your customer journey to boost satisfaction is through integrating your core business systems such as your CRM, ERP and PSA, allowing you to gain a complete view of your customers. This allows you to easily cross reference information from each of the tools and allows for transparency across all areas of your business, reducing the time it would’ve taken otherwise to view any data associated with a project.
Ultimately, being able to integrate your systems will create seamless functionality, providing analytics and increased business intelligence towards your capabilities of keeping your customers satisfied.
How can a PSA tool help meet the above tips?
A PSA tool gives you the ability to run projects as efficiently and productively as possible. You can benefit from features such as:
- Effective time and expense management – offering the benefits of timelines and the ability to track project labour and expenses effectively thanks to accurate information
- Resource planning capabilities – online portals that provide information towards your workforce and clients displaying detailed tracking information, with additional capabilities of identifying project deliverables
- Level of integration – combine your PSA tool with your other software such as an ERP or CRM. This gives you the ability to automate effectively based on service triggers you set, so you can keep customer satisfaction at the forefront of your operations
Download our useful guide for more information about our PSA solution below!
