After reading this article, you will learn about the importance of customer happiness for businesses, the characteristics of happy and good customers, the risks of unhappy customers, and strategies to ensure customer satisfaction and prevent customer churn. You will also discover best practices for customer relationship management and how to build trust with customers.

Key Takeaways:

Happy customers can be powerful brand ambassadors and positively impact your business’s reputation.
Good customers are those who pay on time, show mutual respect, provide feedback, and have a beneficial relationship with your business.
Unhappy customers can drain resources, harm your reputation, and deter potential clients.
A good customer can become unhappy due to poor customer service or unmet expectations.
Monitoring customer satisfaction, using surveys, and addressing customer concerns can help prevent churn.
Providing excellent ongoing support, keeping customers informed, and maintaining genuine conversations with customers are key practices for customer relationship management.

A happy customer is your brand ambassador. That same happy customer will promote and expound the qualities of your product or service, and what’s more important, they’ll raise the profile of your brand without you even having to ask. Customer happiness is a secret weapon waiting to rediscovered by many businesses who want to grow their profitability.

But, sadly, the mathematics of having and keeping happy customers is not a straightforward metric. There are good customers and there are bad customers. However, there are also levels of satisfaction amongst those customers; there are happy customers who become unhappy, and unhappy customers who in turn may become, not just disgruntled but major liabilities to your business and the perception of its professionality.

The question is, just how do you deal with these differing levels of satisfaction? And what can you do to harvest, and profit from the potential of a truly happy customer?

Let’s go explore.

Who is a happy customer?

“The single most important thing is to make people happy. If you are making people happy, as a side effect, they will be happy to open up their wallets and pay you.” ~ Derek Sivers, Founder of CD Baby

A happy customer is a paying customer, but you already know that. Cultivating strong and happy relationships with your customers is a crucial factor in growing a successful business with a significant competitive edge. In the age of automation, preserving the human element in your customer experience is more important than ever.

Why? Because your customers are just as connected as you are. Because they are people, and they care about themselves and about how they are treated and perceived by others. One misstep or bad experience with you or your support team, and they’ll be shouting about it to their followers right across every nook and cranny of social media. Bad word of mouth can tarnish a brand’s reputation for a long time, and, in some cases, forever.

In essence, a happy customer is someone who is actively using your product and is completely satisfied with the interaction and the outcome. They receive appropriate support, if and when needed, and they know how to use the product to pursue and achieve their desired outcome, and because of this, they will happily recommend your solution to anyone who’s prepared to listen. That’s a happy customer; the best friend your business can have.

Who is a good customer?

This is a question many business owners rarely, if ever, ask themselves. It also happens to be a very tricky question to answer. You would think that a customer who is ready to pay for your product or services is, by default, a good customer. But that is not the whole truth. The correct question to ask yourself is this; “what makes a good customer for my business?”

Although every business will have their own definition of a good customer, some aspects of this definition will apply to any company in any industry. These include payment, mutual respect, relationship, and reciprocity. Let’s take a closer look at each of these traits.

Payment. Chasing invoices and getting your clients to pay can be a huge drain on your business – and your time. The truth is, if you partner with bad customers you might just end up wasting your resources on tasks that shouldn’t even exist. For a small business, it can be almost impossible to say no to a potential customer who is willing and happy to hand over their money to you, but, it is also just as important to assess whether someone is a good payer before engaging with them. Imagine if a third of your client base were late to pay their invoices; a situation like that has the possibility to tip your business into the financial abyss.

Mutual respect. A good customer is someone who treats you and your staff with respect. It is important to allow a dissatisfied client to air their complaints; however, customers who lash out at you or your support agents, and those who use a hostile tone, even for the slightest of reasons, will have a negative impact on your team and its atmosphere. A business relationship must be beneficial – and respectful – to all parties involved, so if you feel that a customer is more demanding than they’re worth, or having a negative impact on your business, do not be afraid to walk away.

Reciprocity. Customers who take the time to give you honest feedback in order to help you improve the customer experience you provide are customers you really want to keep. Having an open line of communication with key clients is a true source of knowledge for any business. While you won’t act on every comment or complaint, you will quickly learn to prioritize and innovate in the most effective way. And besides that, customers who feel that they’re getting extra value for their money will recommend your business to others. Word of mouth is still the most powerful marketing tool in the mix.

Relationship. While it is probably not the most important factor, actually liking and respecting your customers as people can help forge substantially stronger relationships. A good customer is someone you wouldn’t mind having lunch with or chatting over a coffee. The importance of cultural fit can often be overlooked in a business environment, yet it is one of the key pillars of building smooth and seamless operations. If your customers have similar views and beliefs, the onboarding process will be simple and frictionless.

Who is an unhappy customer?

If you subscribe to the desperate entrepreneur’s mantra that “a customer is a customer – good or bad” you are putting your company in danger. Not every customer will be a good fit for your business, simply because you can’t be everything to everyone. Also, we are not talking about demanding customers here; some of your clients will prove to be difficult to please, but whom you know how to handle. What your business should not tolerate are unhappy customers.

One unhappy customer can impact your ability to support other customers, drain your resources and even drive other, potential clients away. If they start speaking negatively about your brand, it can harm your reputation and deter interested leads from working with you.

An unhappy customer is typically someone who is totally dissatisfied with your product and service and raises issues that you cannot solve. If there is nothing you can do to accommodate the client and help them achieve their goal, then it’s always best to simply part ways and end the relationship before it causes even more damage to your business. Again, the simple truth is that your product is not suitable for everyone. No matter how hard you try to onboard and support unhappy clients, they will never just turn around and fall in love with your solution. A customer that is not a good fit for your business is like a ticking bomb, just waiting to explode. Assess the situation and your options, work through all possible solutions to give the client what they want, and if that doesn’t work, move on.

Can a good customer be unhappy?

Absolutely. A good customer can be unhappy, and that’s typically caused by a subpar customer service experience or a failed promise. Nothing hurts a brand’s relationship with their loyal customers more than failing to deliver on the brand promise. Once a customer completely puts their trust in your brand, they are more likely to overlook any small missteps and mistakes which might occur. If they’re truly satisfied with the service, they won’t even make a fuss if your prices increase, they may even elevate their custom to premium features or new add-ons. But fail to meet their core expectations, and you’ll face the possibility of a major calamity.

A good customer can also be unhappy for other reasons. To uncover them, you must refer to your unique definition of what a good customer means for your business and start looking for the less obvious indicators. Could the unhappiness stem from something less apparent; like a change of copy in your late payment email, or your inability to act on important customer feedback?

The bottom line is that a good customer can be unhappy, but if you catch that sour mood in time you have the power to restore the situation.

How to see this in advance?

The best way to prevent customer depreciation is by measuring customer satisfaction. A telltale sign signaling potential problems in the customer experience is your churn rate – how quickly clients are turning away from your business. Unhappy customers churn, simple as that. To avoid cancellations, complaints, and general customer unhappiness, you need to monitor how satisfied they are at every step of the user journey. If a customer decides to leave, your goal is to understand the reasons behind such a decision and make adjustments to prevent other clients from following suit, now or in the future. The CSat and NPS surveys are the most effective tools which can enable any business to keep a pulse on their overall customer satisfaction and fix to unexpected hiccups without drawing too much attention.

How to change the situation: best practices

If you take away one lesson today, let it be this: “Always do more than is required of you” (George S. Patton).

customer satisfaction survey — *Image Source:* *McKinsey*

There’s no denying that your customer happiness team is also performing a critical marketing function. A happy customer is a walking advertisement. If you want to benefit from the enormous power of the word of mouth and reduce customer churn, you must take customer satisfaction seriously and put the right mechanisms in place to monitor it at significant touch points of their journey experience.

These are the best practices of customer relationship management that we stand by and recommend to other business:

#1 Provide excellent ongoing support and extras

I don’t mean to be repetitive, but it’s critical to embrace the “sale doesn’t end after the customer pays” philosophy to achieve customer happiness. Ensure your support agents respond quickly and enthusiastically, treat customers with utmost respect and show empathy. Your customer happiness agents should also have a special extra ‘something’ up their sleeve in order to tackle difficult situations with grace. If you’re lucky, a special discount or offer can lead to an upsell or upgrade.

#2 Build trust by keeping your customers in the loop

Did you know that it takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience? Let your customer down once, and you will feel the ripples of your mistake for a long time to come. One of the easiest ways to avoid customer backlash is to inform them about significant changes, good and bad, well in advance, allowing them time to adjust and provide feedback. If you treat your customers like trusted partners, they’ll return the favor by staying loyal and recommending your product to others.

#3 Have a genuine conversation with your customers

Responding in a timely manner is key, but keeping the interaction genuine and personable is just as important. Make sure your responses are friendly and clear, avoid industry jargon, and always sign the message with your name or initials rather than using the company name. Customers need to know they’re interacting with a human being, not an automated bot. If the situation allows, try to address the customer by their name to establish, or reestablish that personal connection.

The Importance of Prioritizing Customer Happiness

Prioritizing customer happiness is vital for the success of any business. Happy customers not only become loyal brand advocates but also contribute to positive word-of-mouth and business growth.
By implementing effective customer relationship management strategies and utilizing tools like Teamgate CRM, you can streamline your customer interactions, track satisfaction levels, and deliver personalized experiences.
Take action today and empower your team with the right tools to foster customer happiness, strengthen relationships, and drive long-term success for your business. Visit Teamgate CRM’s website to explore how their platform can help you enhance your customer relationships.

FAQ: How to make a customer happy

Q: How to make a customer happy?

A: Making a customer happy involves various strategies and practices. Here are some key steps to consider:

Provide excellent customer service: Respond promptly, treat customers with respect, and show empathy towards their needs and concerns.
Deliver a quality product or service: Ensure that your product or service meets or exceeds customer expectations in terms of functionality, performance, and value.
Personalize the customer experience: Tailor your interactions and offerings to match individual customer preferences and needs. Make customers feel valued and understood.
Communicate effectively: Keep customers informed about updates, changes, and any relevant information related to your product or service. Transparency and proactive communication build trust.
Offer continuous support: Be available to assist customers throughout their journey, providing guidance, troubleshooting, and addressing their queries or issues promptly.
Go the extra mile: Exceed customer expectations by providing additional benefits, perks, or surprises. Offer exclusive discounts, loyalty programs, or personalized recommendations.
Act on customer feedback: Regularly gather feedback and actively use it to improve your product, service, and overall customer experience. Let customers know that their opinions are valued and acted upon.

Q: How can I measure customer happiness?

A: Measuring customer happiness is crucial to understanding and improving their experience. Here are two common methods for gauging customer satisfaction:

Customer Satisfaction (CSat) surveys: Send post-interaction surveys to customers, asking them to rate their satisfaction with specific aspects of your product, service, or support. Use rating scales or open-ended questions to gather feedback. Analyze the responses to identify trends and areas for improvement.
Net Promoter Score (NPS): Implement NPS surveys to assess customer loyalty and likelihood to recommend your business. Customers rate their likelihood of recommending your product or service on a scale of 0 to 10. Based on their responses, classify customers into Promoters, Passives, or Detractors. Calculating the NPS score gives you an overall measure of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Q: What should I do if a customer is unhappy?

A: Handling unhappy customers requires a proactive and empathetic approach. Here are some steps to follow:

Listen attentively: Allow the customer to express their concerns fully. Show empathy, patience, and understanding. Avoid interrupting or becoming defensive.
Apologize sincerely: Take responsibility for any mistakes or shortcomings. Apologize genuinely for the inconvenience or dissatisfaction caused, regardless of fault.
Resolve the issue promptly: Work towards finding a solution that satisfies the customer. If possible, offer alternatives or compensation to rectify the situation and regain their trust.
Follow up: After resolving the issue, reach out to the customer to ensure their satisfaction. This demonstrates your commitment to their happiness and helps maintain a positive relationship.
Learn from the experience: Analyze the root cause of the issue and identify areas for improvement. Use customer feedback as an opportunity to refine your processes and prevent similar situations in the future.

In this article, we’ll explore how Teamgate elevated its customer satisfaction rate from 95.1% in 2015 to 97.2% in 2017. The piece dissects the importance of customer satisfaction, various methods, and best practices for measuring it, and effective strategies for dealing with difficult customers. It offers insights into the tools that can help monitor and improve customer satisfaction, making it a valuable resource for businesses striving for growth and enhanced customer experience.

Key Takeaways:

Customer satisfaction is crucial for business growth and can significantly increase profits with even a slight increase in customer retention rates.
Teamgate successfully enhanced its customer satisfaction by thoroughly analyzing and rectifying mistakes in customer support requests and prioritizing a human touch in customer interactions.
Measuring customer satisfaction involves carefully crafted CSat surveys and the utilization of various tools like web surveys, post-service surveys, and email surveys.
Managing difficult customers effectively requires excellent listening skills, patience, and maintaining professionalism in high-tension situations.

Customer satisfaction is the third most important growth engine in any modern business, trumped only by new customer acquisition and marketing. The importance of customer satisfaction can never be overlooked.

If you’re interested in keeping your customers, you will want to monitor how satisfied they are with the service or products you provide, along with providing insights into why they may be leaving.

We have spent many long hours honing our approach to customer support, but it paid off in the end – having gained 97% customer satisfaction. We were constantly striving for new ideas and methods of how to improve customer satisfaction. If you’re curious about how we did, it’s all here.

What is customer satisfaction?

Customer satisfaction is a metric which measures how well a company, or more accurately, its product or service, meets customers’ expectations. The importance of customer satisfaction cannot be overstated. Establishing and maintaining excellent relationships with customers is the only effective, long-term strategy for businesses that strive to achieve high growth. Help Scout has found that 81% of companies providing superior customer experience outperform their competition.

Happy customers can be equated to loyal customers. Once a customer places their trust in you and is happy with the service you’re delivering, they will not only continue to do business with you but will also be more likely to upgrade or try other services and products you may supply. At the risk of overstating a point successful companies never overestimate the importance of customer satisfaction.

According to Harvard Business Review, acquiring a new customer can be anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than keeping an existing one. So, focusing on customer happiness is not just some new trend that modern businesses are obsessing over, it is a viable profit-driven strategy. A study conducted by Frederick Reichheld, the inventor of the net promoter score, has shown that increasing customer retention rates by a mere 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.

Why is customer satisfaction important?

The significance of customer satisfaction extends far beyond just the ‘feel-good’ factor for businesses. It plays a fundamental role in the growth and success of an organization, holding a strategic position right next to new customer acquisition and marketing in importance.

If you’re determined to retain your customers, monitoring their satisfaction level with the products or services you provide becomes essential. In addition, gaining insights into why customers might be leaving is invaluable. To achieve high customer satisfaction rates, many businesses, like us, invest significant time and effort in refining their customer support approach. And this investment pays off, as evidenced by our 97% customer satisfaction rate.

Why is this so significant, you might ask? Well, research indicates that acquiring a new customer can be anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one. Furthermore, a study conducted by Frederick Reichheld, the inventor of the net promoter score, has shown that increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can boost profits by 25% to 95%.

There’s more – satisfied customers are more likely to stay loyal and try other services or products you may offer, translating into more business for you. According to Harvard Business Review, companies that provide superior customer experience outperform their competition by 81%.

In short, prioritizing customer satisfaction isn’t merely a trend that modern businesses are adopting, but a profit-driven strategy that contributes significantly to business growth. Thus, underestimating the importance of customer satisfaction is not an option for successful companies.

In the following sections, we delve into how customer satisfaction is measured and offer insights into how we achieved a 97% customer satisfaction rate.

How to measure customer satisfaction?

Customer satisfaction can be challenging to measure, but first, you should thoroughly understand the exact meaning of just what is customer satisfaction. It is typically based on a short survey – populated with appropriate customer satisfaction survey questions – which a customer completes after fulfilling an action on the site, chatting with a support representative, or once their ticket is resolved. The CSat survey can be presented in many forms, but it’s usually a single question concerning a specific experience. For instance, you might be asked “How would you rate your shopping experience with us today?” and prompted to either leave a star rating or choose from a couple of simple options, such as excellent, good, or bad. You will be surprised by just what you can learn from a well-thought-out customer satisfaction questionnaire.

Companies often try to make their customer satisfaction survey as lightweight and ubiquitous as possible; for example, by embedding it in the signature of an email or sending it automatically after a support ticket is closed.

However, failing to measure CSat can be expensive. 91% of unhappy customers who are non-complainers simply leave and 85% of customer churn due to poor service which was preventable. If you don’t measure your CSat, you will never know of these customers’ existence.

The Net Promoter Score, or NPS, is also a popular method of gauging customer satisfaction. It is calculated using the answer to one key question and a 0-10 scale. That one important question gives an unprecedented insight into customer experience and satisfaction – “How likely are you to recommend us to your friend or colleague?”

Customer Satisfaction Chart — *Source: Retently*

Service organizations are able to create loyal customers by teaching them how to solve their problems quickly and easily without having to use a support agent, rather than by delighting them in service interactions. These types of organizations often rely on the Customer Effort Score (CES), which measures how much effort a customer invested into a certain interaction with the company. The two versions of the CES survey question that are currently used by different businesses include “How much effort did you personally have to invest to handle your request?” (a 5-point scale) and “The organisation made it easy for me to handle my issue” (an agree/disagree type of question).

How are we measuring customer satisfaction?

It is vitally important that you know just how to measure customer satisfaction. “You can’t expect your clients to be completely happy with your product if you do not offer great customer support,” says Vitalija Golceva, Head of Customer Success at Teamgate.

The customer happiness team at Teamgate has come a long way since 2015 when they started seriously measuring customer satisfaction. According to Zendesk, which Teamgate employ to handle email tickets, the average customer satisfaction rate is 94%. However, due to a consistent and diligent approach to measuring customer satisfaction after each resolved ticket, Teamgate’s customer success team managed to increase the satisfaction rate from 95.1% in 2015 to 97.2% in 2017.

But just what was it that made our customers more satisfied with the support they were receiving? A couple of things, really. First of all, we began analysing customer support requests which were repeatedly receiving poor reviews. This allowed us to identify and solve our mistakes, and never make them again.

The second important factor which helped us improve our overall performance was adding the human touch. Of course, to save time and work more efficiently, we had to automate some of the most common messages, but we made it a priority to give each of our clients the individual and personal support they needed.

Vitalija, Head of Customer Success at Teamgate, comments, “At the end of the day, a kind word from a client makes every customer support specialist feel great.” So, as you can see it is worth the time and effort of understanding exactly how to improve customer satisfaction with Zendesk CRM.

Best methods and practices

Successful companies will have understood and embedded their own brand’s customer satisfaction definition. “The methods you choose to apply in your organisation can be somewhat influenced by the nature of your business, or your industry,” says Vitalija. “However, many of the core practices ring true in most cases. To ensure your customers are happy with the support you deliver, try to incorporate these timeless tips into your performance.”

Positive customer satisfaction examples can be achieved as follows:

Address your customer by name. Ask your customer if you can call them by their first name to strike a more personal relationship and establish trust. Communicating on first name basis helps to humanise the conversation and create a friendlier interaction.
Always give the customer your name. By introducing yourself and giving the customer your name, you will reassure them that they’re talking to a real person, not some chatbot.

Show empathy. A simple phrase like “That doesn’t sound good…” or “I can see why you’re upset” shows the customer that you empathize with their issue and understand how they’re feeling. It is one of the primary elements of successful social customer interaction and should never be overlooked.

When it comes to measuring customer satisfaction, there are a number of best practices you should take into account when crafting CSat surveys.

Focus on one goal. If you’re asking your customers to help you improve your service or product, respect their time by limiting your survey to one specific goal and keep it short.

Monitor the length. Again, you’re asking your customers to carve out time for you in their busy schedules, so, ensure that all questions included in the survey have a purpose. Aim for 5-10 survey questions relating to areas, such as overall satisfaction, service delivery, or customer experience.

Don’t use jargon. Never assume how much or how little your customers know about the industry you’re operating in. Keeping your surveys free of jargon and easy to understand, for even the least knowledgeable customer, will increase your chances of soliciting more responses.
Personalize and brand it. To help customers understand what they are participating in, and which company is asking for feedback, make sure the survey is branded and personalised. It’s also best to send the survey within 5 days of the customer’s interaction with your business.

Customer Satisfaction Tools To Use — *Source:* *SurveyAnyplace*

What tools should you use and why?

To pinpoint the biggest issues in your service and prevent unhappy customers from churning, you might find some of the following tools useful.

Web surveys

This survey method has a high response rate because it is immediate and straightforward. You can prompt customers who are browsing your website to answer a few short questions while they are in the moment. What you’re doing is simply asking their opinion about your product, service or brand while they are actually engaging with it; hence its effectiveness.

Some of the most popular tools used for web surveys include SurveyGizmo, FluidSurveys, SurveyMonkey, and getfeedback.

Post-service surveys

These surveys need to be dispatched immediately after you provide a service to measure how happy your customers’ experience has been. Real-time interactions are what makes post-service surveys such a powerful tool.

Tools you might want to look into include ClientHeartbeat, Wootric, and CustomerSure.

Email surveys

If you want to pick your customers’ brains and gain a more insightful view into the health of your customer service, sending longer email surveys with multiple questions can be an option. However, be aware that these surveys have a low response – typically, 10 to 15%.

The best tools for email surveys include Surveypal, Typeform, SurveyMonkey, and Zoho Survey.

How to handle difficult customers

Working in customer support almost inevitably means occasional interaction with difficult customers. It’s also possible you have to do a little more often that, however, the more experience you get with handling complaints, the better you improve at it when it becomes necessary. According to Vitalija, “turning an unhappy customer around is actually not that difficult if you know what to do and how to do it. Here are a few rules that we go by at Teamgate.”

Rule #1: listen to your customer. If you ever try to talk to an angry customer, you’ll end up in a very sour situation. Allow the client to speak their mind and get the bad stuff off their chest, regardless of whether they’re right or not. One of the key skills of a good listener is to recognize the real issue at heart, having asked the correct questions to uncover them successfully. The best thing you can do to manage the customer’s emotions is to allow them to complain until they are ready to engage in a conversation.

Rule #2: imagine you’re in front of a crowd. Sometimes you might get sucked into the dark place, from which the unhappy customer is coming. You might be tempted to be rude and unhelpful towards them because they’re treating you unfairly and the customer isn’t always right. But if you take a step back and think about it; it really isn’t worth it. When dealing with particularly troublesome customers, try to imagine that your conversation is being listened to and watched by a hundred other clients. This should make it easier to stay professional, even in high-tension situations.

Bringing it all together

Customer happiness leads to customer retention, which in turn leads to customer acquisition; as satisfied clients will tell at least 6 people about a good experience or interaction they have had with a brand. Putting the right measures in place to monitor, and continuously improve customer support, is a high-priority task for all growth-oriented businesses. Positive customer service examples should also be collected, analysed and employed for future interaction experiences.

FAQ: Customer Satisfaction

Q: What is customer satisfaction?

A: Customer satisfaction is a metric that measures how well a company, or more accurately, its product or service, meets customers’ expectations. This includes maintaining excellent relationships with customers and meeting or exceeding their expectations in terms of product quality and service.

Q: Why is customer satisfaction important?

A: Customer satisfaction is crucial as it leads to customer retention and loyalty, which often result in increased profitability. Satisfied customers are more likely to upgrade or try other services and products a company may offer. It’s also cheaper to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one.

Q: How to improve customer satisfaction?

A: Customer satisfaction can be improved through several methods, such as monitoring customer feedback, personalizing customer interactions, showing empathy during customer interactions, and ensuring quality in product/service delivery. Companies should also make an effort to promptly solve any problems a customer might encounter and measure customer satisfaction regularly to identify areas of improvement.

Q: How do companies measure customer satisfaction?

A: Companies often measure customer satisfaction using various methods such as CSat surveys, Net Promoter Score (NPS), and the Customer Effort Score (CES). Surveys typically ask questions related to the customer’s experience and satisfaction with the product or service. NPS measures the likelihood of a customer recommending a company’s product or service, while CES gauges the amount of effort a customer had to invest during an interaction with the company.

Q: What tools are useful for measuring customer satisfaction?

A: There are several tools that companies can use to measure customer satisfaction, such as web surveys (SurveyGizmo, FluidSurveys, SurveyMonkey), post-service surveys (ClientHeartbeat, Wootric, CustomerSure), and email surveys (Surveypal, Typeform, SurveyMonkey, Zoho Survey).

Q: How can companies handle difficult customers?

A: Companies can manage difficult customers by allowing them to express their concerns or frustrations, empathizing with them, and providing solutions to their problems. It’s important to maintain professionalism and treat each customer interaction as if it’s being witnessed by other potential customers.

Q: Why is it important to personalize and brand customer satisfaction surveys?

A: Personalizing and branding surveys can help customers understand what they are participating in and which company is asking for their feedback. This also helps establish a stronger connection between the customer and the company, which can improve the likelihood of the customer providing their honest feedback.

Q: What practices should be avoided in customer satisfaction surveys?

A: Companies should avoid using jargon in their surveys, asking unnecessary questions, and having lengthy surveys. Surveys should be clear, concise, and focused on one specific goal to respect the customer’s time and increase the chances of them completing it.

Q: Why does adding a human touch matter in customer service?

A: Adding a human touch to customer service can significantly improve customer satisfaction. It ensures that clients feel valued and understood, which fosters a stronger relationship between them and the company.

Q: How does customer satisfaction lead to customer acquisition?

A: Satisfied customers are more likely to recommend a company’s product or service to others, thereby leading to new customer acquisition. It’s found that happy clients tend to share their positive experiences with at least six other people.

We strongly believe that every business needs a CRM solution (CRM stands for customer relationship management) and especially for small businesses. Long past are the days of logging things purely with Excel or even worse, keeping them in a paper notebook or your head. Even small businesses now can have hundreds of details to keep track of about their customers. Customers, in turn, expect a lot more out of service than previously. And every good salesman knows – the most important thing is to remember every detail about your customer.

All differences between the CRMs for small businesses and those intended for enterprises are based on price. While CRMs for small businesses won’t have all the features, these generally aren’t even necessary at the early stages of growth. Furthermore, many of them are overcomplicated, thus demotivate the team from using them as often Enterprise CRMs are more focused on data collection and tracking for better large-scale business optimization instead of your sales team efficiency.

The decision-making process is made all the more difficult due to the immense proliferation of CRM solutions. CRMs have flooded the market – from those that are just glorified Excel to those who seem fit to manage the entire world. Picking the best CRM for small businesses is made increasingly harder due to the huge amount of choices.

Therefore, we decided to list the most important features for CRMs for small businesses in 2023. Here is also 5 Common CRM Software Mistakes you should read about as-well. Additionally, in this article, you’ll find several criteria on how to evaluate CRMs and a suggestion for a specific CRM that could work for your Small Business.

Important features for CRM for small business 2023

As noted above, pricing will be the key determinant when picking a CRM for small businesses. Usually, they have heavily restricted budgets. As such, small businesses have to stay as lean as possible. Veering off this path can cause significant stagnation.

Small businesses should ensure that the CRM they are thinking about can cover several aspects. Each of these will be critical at all stages of development:

Ability to maintain customer and contact database in one place
Capture leads through website visits, filling forms, or requesting a demo
Collect in-depth historical data about every lead and customer
Ability to segment audiences and target them with emails or other marketing channels
Foresee sales patterns
Predict revenue through pipelines
Automate part of the sales process

Every other feature offered by CRM solution providers isn’t that necessary. In fact, depending on the skillset of the account management and sales team additional features may only serve as a distraction. Large, sprawling CRMs work usually only when there are dedicated people working with the databases. In most cases, these people are unavailable for small businesses.

How to pick the best sales CRM for your sales team

Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it used to be. The CRM solution market has been saturated. There are dozens upon dozens of different solutions, all seemingly the perfect CRM for small business. However, there are several things to keep in mind.

One is the availability of technical people. Integrating some CRMs into existing tech stacks might take some time. Additionally, if the CRM is highly technical and has to be maintained by technical or data workers, that will add invisible costs.

Secondly, it’s essential to evaluate the overall complexity of the CRM solution against the ability and size of your own teams. A great example is Salesforce. While the CRM solution hosts an immense amount of features and brings a lot of power, enterprises usually have dedicated Salesforce experts to manage the entire thing. CRMs as complex as Salesforce are usually not the best option for small businesses and not even for medium size companies. It mostly focuses on large enterprises that require custom solutions. You can easily see this from Salesforce reviews on Trustpilot.

In fact, price and the learning curve of CRM software might be the two foundational aspects. Small businesses should seek to keep both of these as low as possible. We at TeamGate focus on exactly that.

With these two criteria in mind, it shouldn’t be too hard to pick out the best CRM for small businesses. However, since the internet is flooded with different ones, picking one out can still take some time. That’s why we developed TeamGate.

What TeamGate can offer as a CRM for Small Businesses 2023

TeamGate is a CRM solution that is dedicated to small businesses. As such, our goal has been to have as little bloat with the best user experience possible. Additionally, we separated our solution into three different categories for even more customization.

Starter – our simplest plan is dedicated to those looking for the very basics. Our starter plan will allow you to simplify contact management, email, and live communication, and use numerous integrations to make your life easier.
Professional – an advanced plan for those who are looking to optimize. It includes everything from the Starter plan with some additional features. These features allow you to score leads, track the productivity of your teams, and the ability to set benchmarks.
Enterprise – a plan for those looking to maximize. Every feature from previous plans is included. However, a whole host of new ones are available. These include in-depth and detailed reports with associated insights, advanced sales process management, and email delivery from a TeamGate account.

Our solution works with a wide variety of systems and can be integrated without hassle. Additionally, we support data imports from the most popular database file formats and even allow data transfers from other CRM solutions. Our support teams will help you achieve the latter to ensure that all data is transferred properly. You can also easily integrate it with either outlook or google mail and many other business solutions.

Finally, we know that investing right off the bat might not look wise to some. Thus, we are prepared to offer a free demo to ensure that our CRM for small businesses can fit the needs and requirements of our clients.

Conclusion

CRMs are a dime a dozen nowadays. There are solutions that hold every feature imaginable. However, they don’t always lead to great results. Feature bloat can often lead to confusion, a difficult learning curve, and price hikes – something all small businesses should avoid.

We believe TeamGate can deliver the same quality as some of the other well-known CRM solutions on the market without the difficult learning curve or associated feature bloat at an unbeatable price. Find out how our CRM solution for small businesses can benefit your business by booking a demo call with our team.

Devyni būdai išlaikyti produktyvumą sunkiu laikotarpiu:

Ribokite naujienų apie karą srautą.

Pasivaikščiokite.

Ribokite alkoholio ir nikotino vartojimą.

Išsikelkite sau realistiškus tikslus ir siekite juos įgyvendinti.

Ribokite nereikalingus streso šaltinius.

Stenkitės maitintis sveikai.

Išbandykite meditaciją.

Vienu metu susitelkite į vieną užduotį.

Apmąstykite savo vertybes ir jomis vadovaukitės priimdami sprendimus.

Europą purto didžiausias nuo šaltojo karo laikų konfliktas – išbandymas žmoniškumui ir didžiulė grėsmė viso regiono saugumui ir stabilumui. Rusijos sukeltam karui Ukrainoje tęsiantis jau daugiau nei dvi savaites, daugelis susiduria su nerimu, sumažėjusiu produktyvumu ir galimybėmis susikaupti įprastai kasdienei veiklai. Nieko nuostabaus – žmonės yra bendruomeniškos būtybės. Stebint beprasmiškas mirtis ir kančią istoriškai ir kultūriškai mums artimoje valstybėje negalime likti abejingi. Nors tai yra normali reakcija, demonstruojanti mūsų empatiją ir rūpestį, susidoroti su emocijų antplūdžiu gali būti sudėtinga.

Daugelio iš mūsų kasdienybę užpildė nuolatinis naujienų iš fronto tikrinimas, bandant suprasti, kodėl visa tai vyksta ir ieškant vilties žiburiu – pranešimų apie laimėtus mūšius. Karo beprasmybė palieka mus nesibaigiančiame minčių rate, bandant atsakyti į klausimą, kodėl visa tai vyksta. Tačiau, norėdami padėti Ukrainai, visų pirma turime padėti patys sau. Tai reiškia rūpinimąsi savo fizine ir emocine sveikata. Vertėtų nepamiršti kasdienių įpročių ir mažų ritualų, kurie padėtų išlaikyti dienos ritmą ir produktyvumą darbe. Nors įprasta veikla šiuo metu gali atrodyti beprasmė, tačiau svarbu, kad kiekvienas visuomenės narys toliau stengtųsi būti naudingas, prisidėtų prie ekonomikos funkcionavimo ir stabilumo šiuo sudėtingu laikotarpiu.

Taigi, kaip galime padėti sau, kad galėtume padėti kitiems?

Visų pirma verta imtis priemonių, kurios padėtų suvaldyti emocijas ir apsaugotų mintis nuo informacijos pertekliaus. Grąžinus į gyvenimą ritmą ir stabilumą, galėsite ramiau reaguoti į išorės įvykius. Štai keletas nesudėtingai įgyvendinamų patarimų, kurie padės atrasti vidinę ramybę, kiek tai įmanoma šiuo sunkiu laiku:

Ribokite naujienų apie karą srautą. Pranešimų apie karo Ukrainoje eigą gausa tiesiog stulbina. Šis karinis konfliktas yra pirmasis pasaulio istorijoje, kuris yra taip gausiai įamžintas. Išmaniųjų technologijų ir socialinių tinklų dėka mus pasiekia net smulkiausios detalės iš fronto, tarp kurių ir itin žiaurūs, karo nusikaltimams prilyginami vaizdai. Tokiu būdu agresijos prieš laisvą šalį beprasmybė jaučiama visame pasaulyje. Įsitraukimas ir nuolatinis naujienų iš karo tikrinimas gali tapti tam tikra priklausomybe. Pabandykite apriboti tokios informacijos kiekį ir dažnumą. Jums gali padėti vadinamasis “Pomodoro” metodas. Nustatykite laikmatį ir 25 minutes dirbkite, po to 5-10 minučių skirkite poilsiui. Pertraukos pabaigai taip pat nustatykite priminimą. Tai padės ne tik produktyviau dirbti, bet ir apriboti naujienų apie karą srautą. Po trijų tokių ciklų, skirkite daugiau laiko poilsiui – bent pusvalandį ar valandą. Šį kartą iš tiesų pailsėkite – ne tik nuo darbo, tačiau ir nuo naujienų, ekranų, galbūt ir nuo kolegų. Stenkitės prablaškyti savo mintis, pailsėkite nuo informacijos, kad galėtume tinkamai ją apdoroti.

Pasivaikščiokite. Sportas – puiki priemonė padedanti valdyti stresą. Jei šiuo sudėtingu laikotarpiu nepavyksta ryžtis intensyviai treniruotei namuose ar kelionei iki sporto klubo, pažadėkite sau bent jau pasivaikščioti. Mūsų nervinė sistema vis dar mena protėvių, kurie gausybę laiko praleido vaikščiodami, laikus. Ši veikla padeda įveikti stresą, pyktį, liūdesį ir kitas slogias emocijas, kurias daugelis iš mūsų šiuo metu jaučiame. Vaikščiokite bent 15 minučių ar ilgiau, porą kartų dienoje. Rezultatą pajusite netrukus.

Ribokite alkoholio ir nikotino vartojimą. Emocinę įtampą mažinti psichotropinių medžiagų pagalba nėra geras pasirinkimas. Trumpuoju laikotarpiu alkoholis ar kitos priklausomybę sukeliančios medžiagos gali padėti užsimiršti ir atsipalaiduoti. Tačiau toks poveikis tėra iliuzija. Ilguoju laikotarpiu žalingi įpročiai sukels tik didesnę emocinę sumaištį, taip pat padidins fizinį kūno patiriamą stresą. Sekite suvartojamo alkoholio ir nikotino kiekius, stenkitės šių medžiagų nevartoti daugiau nei įprasta. Jei įmanoma – iš viso atsisakykite.

Išsikelkite sau realistiškus tikslus ir siekite juos įgyvendinti. Šiuo metu atmosfera pasaulyje bauginanti ir chaotiška. Visiškai suprantama, jei jaučiatės prastai. Dėl šios priežasties verta nekelti sau nepamatuotų lūkesčių darbe ir asmeniniame gyvenime. Suprantama, kad negalėsite atlikti įprastų užduočių visų 100 procentų. Neverta graužtis dėl sumažėjusio produktyvumo. Verčiau stenkitės atlikti užduotis geriausiai kaip galite ir būkite sau atlaidūs kuomet nepavyksta išlaikyti įprasto tempo.

Ribokite nereikalingus streso šaltinius. Įprastai galime toleruoti ir įveikti daug smulkių kasdienių streso šaltinių. Tačiau ne šiomis dienomis – daug mažų dirgiklių gali peraugti į didelę emocinę problemą. Visi turime smulkių ir ne itin svarbių reikalų, kurie savo eilės ir dėmesio laukia mėnesių mėnesius. Dabar ne laikas dėl jų griaužtis, leiskite sau juos pamiršti ir nesileiskite jų blaškomi.

Stenkitės maitintis sveikai. Krentant produktyvumui dažnai kenčia sveiki įpročiai. Neefektyviai praleistas darbo valandas kompensuojama laiku, kurį skirtume maisto gamybai ir valgymui atsipalaidavus. Nesveikas, saldus ir greitai paruošiamas maistas taip pat gali atrodyti viliojanti išeitis patiriant stresą, skubant ir siekiant greitos emocinės paguodos. Tačiau, greičiausiai, suprantate, kad tokie pasirinkimai veda į uždarą kaltės ir vis mažėjančio produktyvumo ratą. Skirkite pakankamai laiko pertraukoms pavalgyti.

Išbandykite meditaciją. Kuomet mintyse chaosas, gali neužtekti tiesiog patogiai įsitaisyti ir nusiraminti. Išbandykite vedamą meditaciją, kuri padės sąmoningai ilsėtis.Tam skirtų programėlių ir grojaraščių galite rasti YouTube arba Spotify. Koncentruojantis į kito žmogaus balsą nusiraminti bus lengviau, nei savarankiškai bandant kovoti su neramiomis ir nuolat galvoje besisukančiomis mintimis.

Vienu metu susitelkite į vieną užduotį. Bandymas daugiau suspėti atliekant kelis darbus vienu metu jus tik dar labiau išvargins. Prisiminkite “Pomodoro” metodą. Dirbdami atsiribokite nuo visų įmanomų išorės dirgiklių, ypač socialinių tinklų ir naujienų portalų pranešimų. Vienu metu atlikite tik vieną darbą. Šiuo laikotarpiu sunku atsiriboti nuo slogių minčių. Neapsunkinkite savęs dar labiau šokinėdami tarp kelių skirtingų užduočių.

Apmąstykite savo vertybes ir jomis vadovaukitės priimdami sprendimus. Ramūs galime būti tuomet, kuomet tikime, kad elgiamės teisingai. Akivaizdu, kad šiuo metu, vykstant karui, susiduriame su didele neteisybe. Natūralu, kad kyla noras prisidėti, siekiant šią padėti ištaisyti. Daug žmonių pasaulyje jau prisidėjo prie savanorių kariaujančių Ukrainoje. Tačiau ne visi turi tam reikiamų įgūdžių ir galimybių. Tam, kad padėtume Ukrainai kovoti už laisvę, nebūtina atsidurti fronte. Padėti galite aukoti pinigus arba savanoriaudami. Šio įrašo gale rasite aktualias nuorodas. Dabar kaip niekad svarbu neprarasti bendruomeniškumo jausmo, prisidėti prie panašiai mąstančių ir aktyviai veikiančių bei pagalbą nukentėjusiems nuo karo teikiančių žmonių. Mažais žingsneliais ir gerais darbais galima atstatyti teisingumo jausmą ir puoselėti viltį.

9 Ways to Keep Your Productivity during hard times:

Limit your exposure to war news.
Take a walk.
Limit Alcohol/Nicotine intake.
Set realistic goals and expectations.
Examine your values and live by them.
Reduce unnecessary stress triggers.
Eat healthy at least once a day.
Try guided meditation.
Reduce multi-tasking.

It’s the N’th day since our daily life flipped to something of a dystopia playing in front of our eyes. We, as humans, are social animals, and seeing members of our society suffering so needlessly, pushes our brains into a loop of trying to find an explanation why is it happening? Many of us find ourselves lost in thoughts and emotions. Many can’t stop reading through all the news for that glimmer of hope. Searching or those small battles won. Looking at the horrors of war, reminding ourselves, that currently, we as a society, are choosing between our humanity and the chance of losing it all.

And for many of us, we feel locked by our emotions. Our brain is stuck in a constant loop of looking for a reason. But to help Ukraine, we need to keep our mental health strong. We need to be able to focus and be productive. We need to support our governments, so they could support Ukraine now. Most important – to rebuild Ukraine in the future. We need to keep our economies strong even with the energy prices rising and the war raging.

So how to help yourself, so you could help others?

I started looking for a way, to control my emotions, to try and stop my brain from burnout with all that information overload. Constant thoughts, looking for a logical answer that does not exist. I came to these things that may help you during these hard times:

Limit your exposure to war news. Both: the frequency and the amount. It is the first, so well documented, act of aggression against a free nation, with all of its war crimes and horror at your fingertips, constantly being updated. What may help you is an old productivity trick, called the Pomodoro technique. Set a timer on one of your smart devices or download a chrome plugin. The quick explanation is – turn on a timer and work for 25 minutes, then have a 5-10 minutes break. Use a timer for a break as well so you would not get lost in the news. During one of those short breaks, you might find it grounding to briefly check “what’s buzzing today?” offering a lighter way to reorient without overwhelm. After 3 Pomodoro, take a longer 20-30 minutes break. But here take a real break, from work, news, and even other people if possible. As your brain needs to digest everything that is happening. I myself do it with 90 Minutes of windows and 15 minutes breaks, with an hour’s break after 2 or 3.
Take a walk. For some, it is already hard to leave the bed in the morning, so we can forget about offering aerobic exercise. However, walking is an amazing stress reliever as well. Our nervous systems were built for our ancestors that walked daily and with the amount of stress and anger, a lot of us are feeling – walking some of it out, helps wonders. I would recommend doing it at least twice a day, for at least 15 minutes.
Limit Alcohol/Nicotine intake. For many, these help to forget, get lost and relax. However, that is only a perception. Both of them create physical stress on our bodies. And when your head is in the wrong place, you may not notice, how you’re increasing your average intake. Count how much you consume and pre-agree with yourself on what you will consume.
Set realistic goals and expectations. You are not okay. The world is not okay. The situation is not okay and you should understand that. If we can’t deliver 100%, we should understand it and not beat ourselves down for it. There is already enough stress in our current situation, just deliver the best you can, but dedicate time slots for it.
Examine your values and live by them. It is important for our brains to act the way we believe is right. And for many – the current situation is not right at all. There are many, that are already left to help on the front lines, but not all of us, have the skills and the ability. However, you can always join your local protest and donate to the charities and Ukrainian government to support them during this horrible war. You can find details about this below. Now more than ever you need to join people that think the same and fight for what you think is right as your brain needs assurance, that humanity stands against it so that you could keep your humanity.
Reduce unnecessary stress triggers. There were a lot of small stress triggers, that we could ignore, but now, every bit matters. Remove those small things, that are causing you stress. Maybe it is a small task you keep on forgetting. Maybe is something you promised yourself to do – but in the current situation it doesn’t matter anymore, so let go of it.
Eat healthy at least once a day. I noticed getting more and more lost in eating mostly pre-made and junk food, because I tried to compensate for the lost productivity by spending less time on making and consuming food, then I would want comforting food due to the emotional load and the feeling of guilt for underperforming. However, getting at least one proper, homemade meal a day, goes a long way for your mental and physical health.
Try guided meditation. There are apps and playlists on youtube and Spotify. When you are already overwhelmed and your brain has issues with comprehending the situation it is close to impossible to do a proper meditation, without assistance if you are not a professional at it. However guided meditations help with it, as you can focus on another person talking to you, instead of trying to push your own thoughts away.
Reduce multi-tasking. This one works perfectly with the Pomodoro technique. During your period of work mute all communication apps. Focus on one task at a time. We all know that there will be thoughts in the background, that are already hard to control.

We can only hope, that freedom and democracy will win and the current situation does not escalate into nuclear war. But for that, we need to keep on going and support Ukraine.

You can help Ukraine by donating to one of these accounts :

National Bank of Ukraine Special Account to Raise Funds for Ukraine’s Armed Forces

Official Ukraine Crypto Account

Hospitaller (the pinned post has the account data )

Blue Yellow ( an organization active since the Crimea invasion)

Ukraine RedCross

Header Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

Black Friday is a shopper’s dream and worst nightmare. The mass of post-Thanksgiving ads has already begun, with retailers large and small offering deals on just about everything.

Aside from the fact that it’s now common thing to offer a discount, there are strategic reasons (or companies think they’re strategic) why companies choose to cut their prices. Business should understand what this strategy sometimes works as ‘destroyer of your sales’.

The main thing is that discounting doesn’t just affect the B2C industry. B2B companies offer discounts on their products or services as well. But should they? WalletHub surveyed 8,000 deals from 30 of the biggest U.S. retailers’ 2015 Black Friday ad scans and identified the retailers offering the largest advertised discounts for each product category such as “Jewelry” and “Appliances.” Maybe this is the answer for B2B companies.

Instead of focusing on great aspects of the product or service, they immediately move to the price. Companies offer a 20% off discount for all new customers. And what they get? An imitation of sales. Where the real problem lies isn’t with generating the new customers and sales, it’s what that discount in price represents and attract unqualified leads.

Products or services from B2B industry (especially SaaS) usually needs more attention, more involvement and engagement. This is not about ‘instant purchasing’ which is all about Black Friday. Other reason for not giving discounts is that as soon as you lower your price, your customer will expect to see the same thing next time. The last thing you should want in your sales conversation is to have the conversation focused only on price.

While talking about Teamgate, we believe that great products do not need discounts. Great products need to be tested. When you’re offering a discount on your service or product, what is that saying to your potencial client? It’s saying that you don’t believe enough in what you’re selling. You are trying to attract customers because of the price and discounts, not because of the product or service quality.

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From the client perspective, the main question is if all the deals are great and effective? Personal finance website NerdWallet analyzed 21 Black Friday advertisements and found that 20 retailers listed at least one product for the exact same price in 2015 as in their 2014 ad. That translates to an overwhelming 95% of retailers repeating Black Friday deals this year. So do not take it straightforward even if its B2B product or service advertisement for Black Friday.

Have a fresh Black Friday and Choose Value Over Discounts.