The ultimate guide to retail customer satisfaction in 2024
Customer satisfaction continues to be one of retail’s hottest topics. It’s the subject of so much discussion and debate simply because of the seismic impact it has on business outcomes.
If your customers are happy, they’ll stay loyal and keep shopping with your brand. If they’re not, then the opposite happens.
The question is, what does satisfaction actually mean for today’s customer? What do they want from the brands they shop with? And more importantly, how do you deliver it?
A focus on these challenges to keep your business thriving and in growth is all too often led down unhelpful sidetracks. Physical stores versus eCommerce? The line for customers is increasingly blurred, and they care more about their overall experience with a brand. Broad consumer trends for the year ahead? The days of clunky market segments and generalisations are over.
What companies need is a new, agile approach and one that puts the customer firmly at the heart of every aspect of their organisation. A strategy that mobilises everyone in the business around a single goal: customer satisfaction (and we don’t just mean your customer-facing teams).
At Goodays, we call it Customer Obsession, and after a decade of partnering with many of the biggest brands in Europe, we can testify that when it comes to improving satisfaction rates, it works.
If this makes you feel like you have a mountain to climb, you don’t! This isn’t about major restructures or multi-year change programmes. It’s about deploying the right tools and strategies to make a difference in the experience of each and every customer, day to day, in the here and now, across the whole customer journey. It’s a bit like a relay race, in which every department is better equipped to perform their leg to the highest level – helping your brand win the customer race!
As the experts in customer experience, our Good Guide to Customer Satisfaction in 2024 is a great place to start. Here are our seven steps to success.
- Lead by example. Your leadership team sets the mindset and the ambition to do better for customers, so ensure they are on board. Insights from our client Bram Vermesen, Director of Excellence – Stores at Carrefour Belgium,, inspire. ‘When I was a Store Director, whenever the store became bustling, and I noticed many people at the check-out, I would always help out. Perception-wise, it’s great for customers to see that the Store Director himself was taking charge and doing everything they could to improve the experience.’
- Build the best customer-facing teams. Only recruit enthusiastic people who genuinely enjoy serving others. This sounds basic, but so many brands filter candidates using other criteria that are less essential for winning with customers. Once hired, treat these people like you do your customers by listening, supporting and embracing their needs. After all, a good EX = a good CX.
- Equip people for success. Right team, proper mindset, but do they have the tools to deliver for customers? Just like every other aspect of business life, customer satisfaction is more efficient, effective and straightforward when the right technology is brought to the task. Empower your teams with business tools which become an easy, everyday part of their routine and that your whole network benefits from using.
- Support your local teams. Don’t overlook the power of your local frontline staff because they are the CX power behind your brand. Give them the proper training, build in local incentives and rewards and share best practices. Getting it right at this level will spark a powerful wave across the whole business, and your customers will feel the effects. It’s a matter of enormous pride at Goodays’ that our platform’s adoption and user satisfaction rates amongst local staff are amongst the highest in the industry.
- Drive cultural change. Adoption of new customer-focused strategies and tools is one thing. Sustaining a company-wide focus on customer satisfaction is often more challenging. Improvements will happen quickly with increased NPS, ROI, and sales. But keep working on the cultural change. Our client, Rami Baitiéh, CEO of Carrefour France, sums it up nicely. ‘The customer is the best strategist and the best consultant, so it’s the customer that I want to listen to daily to decide what needs to be done. And it works.”
- Showcase success. When positive change happens to your customer satisfaction scores (and it will), measure it and share it with the whole business. With measurement functionality at their fingertips, our clients can demonstrate ROI in terms of sales and business success. Importantly, this breeds trust amongst teams and confidence that their work is valuable and making a difference.
- Evolve and optimise. Your customers are ever-evolving, so view Customer Obsession as a dynamic strategy. We regularly add new channels and capabilities to the platform, from Google My Business to WhatsApp, because the pace of digital transformation in customers’ lives demands it. The retail landscape is also never static for long, so revisit your plans to ensure you stay one step ahead of competitors.
