Now that you have at least one client, you’re excited and you’re looking forward to solidifying the relationship in order to grow your business. Your number one objective is client satisfaction. Yet, you may be wondering just how you can ensure that your client is happy with you and with the service that you provide. Since it’s that time of year where students are headed back to school, we thought that now would be a good time to provide you with Client Satisfaction 101.
What Is Client Satisfaction?
Client satisfaction is exactly what it sounds like: the satisfaction level of your clients. So, the real question is less about how to define client satisfaction and more about you knowing exactly what makes your clients happy.
Your job as a service provider is to do more than provide service. It is to ensure that your clients are happy with your service. It is your job to find out whether your clients are satisfied and what they would like from your company. In short, you must find out what makes your clients happy.
Finding Out if Your Clients Are Happy
Finding out if your clients are happy with your services is easy, but it can also be scary. No one wants to be told that they’re not doing a good job. However, the only way that you can fix a problem is to know that it exists. There are several methods that you can use to measure client satisfaction.
Online surveys. You can conduct anonymous surveys via email. Sites like SurveyMonkey allow people to create surveys with links that you can email out to your clients. You can solicit feedback with as little or as much identifying information as your clients feel comfortable giving you.
Look for your clients on social media. You don’t necessarily have to friend or follow your clients on social media. However, you can look for them and look at public posts to determine if they’ve had any complaints about your service or your business. You can also search on your business name. This is a good way to determine client satisfaction and alert you to any potential problems.
Suggestion box. Set-up a suggestion box for your office. Encourage clients to leave notes about their experience.
Take client phone calls seriously. When a client calls with a question, concern, or complaint, take it seriously. This is your opportunity to help your client. These are indicators of potential or existing problems that you need to fix.
Get Your Staff Involved
You are not the only person responsible for client satisfaction. Client satisfaction starts with the very first contact that your clients have with your business. This means that the person who answers the phone and books appointments on your behalf is just as responsible for client satisfaction as you are. The person who answers billing questions, mails out statements, and collects payments is just as responsible for client satisfaction as you are. Your entire staff must be onboard. This concept is known as total quality management. It means that your client determines the definition of quality and your entire staff works toward providing a good experience for your client.
Make sure that your staff has the authority that they need to actually make a difference. Not every decision needs your approval. In fact, the time that clients spend waiting for an answer can greatly decrease their level of satisfaction. Clients should not have to spend a lot of time waiting to get an answer when they’re giving you money to solve a problem. To learn more about how you can handle an unhappy client, check out this article on Entrepreneur.com! When your staff members can solve problems, your clients simply have a better experience.
Return Phone Calls
It should go without saying, but if your clients call and ask to speak with you, it’s important that you call them back. Make it a company rule to return all calls within 24 business hours. Even if you or your staff still don’t have an answer for the client, calling them to let them know that you’re still researching the matter can go a long way to improving client satisfaction. It lets the client know that they matter and that you haven’t forgotten about them.
Get Help with Your Customer Service
If you need help improving your customer service or if you’re looking for a way to acquire a customer service representative without the expense of bringing on a full time employee, call Clients ARM now at 206-596-3000. We are currently providing free process reviews for service related businesses. Clients ARM has more than 30 years of director-level experience and can assist your office with its customer service and client satisfaction needs. Learn more about how we combine technological excellence with old fashioned customer service principles and contact us today!
