Being customer-focused means that marketing efforts need to balance the goals of the organization with the needs of their "customers" (contacts, members, donors, prospects, legislators).
Customer-focused organizations integrate their customer service department and website content with current marketing efforts to offer choices. By offering choices, they open opportunities for customers to respond to the call to action. That way, the customer chooses when and how they want to hear from the organization.
For years, these organizations have used focus groups and other consumer index information to help determine what their product offering should be. More and more, focus groups and customer surveys are being used to determine how an organization is perceived by its supporters. After the questions are asked and the numbers are in, organizations are changing how they speak to their supporters.
Customer satisfaction is a relatively new key metric that organizations seek to determine. Ways to measure customer satisfaction include:
■ Conducting a survey – Extract a list from your database, develop customer satisfaction questions, call or send the survey to your customers, record the responses, and analyze the results.
■ Integrating short surveys into your customer service activities – Add questions to a donor reply device or a membership renewal package.
■ Offering a survey on your website.
■ Encouraging your customer service staff to ask questions when they are on the phone with your customer and to record the answers.
A key component to being customer-focused is responding to supporters when they take the time to ask a question or express a concern. Respect for the customer is the key to maintaining high customer satisfaction ratings.
Measuring customer satisfaction is integrally tied to managing your key business processes well, particularly your customer service processes.