Modern customers are spoilt for choices and they want to maximize the value of their purchases with the customer support services. They are very hard to please and quick to jump over to your competitor. In the wake of the situation companies are trying every trick in the book to understand the satisfaction levels of the customers and act proactively to improve the satisfaction levels. Loss of customers is never good for the cash flow and profit margins of a company. Today, it takes 5-10 times more effort and money to earn a new customer than to retain the old ones. When the times are so demanding, the metrics that are used to measure the customer satisfaction levels are very important. As the customers are not afraid of shifting loyalty, companies need to consistently collect customer feedbacks and upgrade their delivery based on the findings.

Questions to Ask Before Fixing a Methodology
But the choice of a metrics to learn about customer satisfaction should not be done in a hurry. You should ask various questions before deciding on a feedback process.
Thing to Measure: Are you trying to measure a service delivery or customer retention or pace of customer problem resolution?

Your Business Type: Are you into B2B transactions, retail sales or customer problem resolution?
Customer’s Time Dedication: How much time can your customers dedicate to provide a feedback – can they respond to questions in less than a minute, less than five minutes or over a couple of days?

Team’s Analytical Capability: What are the skills of your team in getting maximum information out of the customers – basic level, business level or detailed level?
Timing of Feedback: When do you intend to ask for feedback – once every day, yearly or soon after the service is delivered?

Surveys for Understanding Effectiveness of Offshore Call Center Outsourcing
After analyzing the exact feedback needs for call center outsourcing services, you can use any of the below mentioned methodologies.


Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSAT)
More than 80% of the customer service surveys carried out by organizations to read the minds of their customers uses the Customer Satisfaction Survey. This survey is multi-dimensional and covers all the touch points that customers used to get in touch with the brand. High CSAT score means that the customer services are on the right track. If you want to pin point a reason for customer dissatisfaction then the CSAT is best methodology to use. CSAT is widely used by all the call center outsourcing services, so there is no difference in the feedback process from your competitors. The common framework used in the CSAT model is known as RATER which tells the customers to rate the services on a scale of five, one being highly dissatisfied and five being very satisfied. One of the basic errors of the CSAT methodology is that it takes every satisfied customer to be loyal. But statistics suggest that 20% of the satisfied customers leave the company. CSAT is the best method for contact center operations where the basic intention of the survey is to understand the customer experience and make amends wherever necessary.


Customer Dissatisfaction Survey (DSAT)
It is the exact reverse of CSAT; here the customer experience is judged on the scale of his/her dissatisfaction with the services provided. It is not a popular methodology and the companies implementing DSAT have had to witness customer confusion. The error in judgment rate with DSAT is very high. This feedback process also does not portray the problem areas faced by the customers.


Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score is the perfect metric to judge the customer loyalty. This process is known for its effectiveness, simplicity and ease of interpretation. The level at which the company is meeting the expectations of customers and gaps in the service can be gained from a single survey. If you have a good NPS then you are way better than the competitors. This survey method is concerned about the basic actionable steps and not on statistics that CSAT focuses on. The survey wants to know whether a customer wants to do repeat business with the brand and if not what the reasons are. This makes the work of management very easy as they get idea about the grey areas from a single survey. But the effectiveness of this survey method is limited to certain industries. The success of this survey also depends on the environment of your cost effective call center outsourcing services.


Customer Effort Score (CES)
Research shows that bitter customer experiences emanate when a customer has to contact the brand to resolve a query repeatedly through an unresponsive channel. Waiting in call queues, going through the long IVR process or waiting for chats to be answered are some of the areas that lead to customer dissatisfaction. This is why the researchers have come up with a new way to measure the customer loyalty and it is known as Customer Effort Score. As per the CES, one is a score when the customer has to spend least effort to get a solution and five is a state when customer has to put in very high effort. The goal of CES is not only to understand the reasons for customer dissatisfaction but to remove them. It also tells the agents to provide clear resolution and not a vague response.


All these methods are vastly different from one another and they serve different purposes too. It is up to you and the think tank to fix on a method that would best suit your customers. With the right feedback process learning about the expectations and satisfactions levels of customers would be very easy and the brands can mend the situation before the competitors pounce on the opportunity.