Customer satisfaction ratings (CSAT) are one of the most commonly measured performance KPIs for contact centres. But does it have an impact on your top line as well?
Research suggests that the answer is a definitive YES. Bain & Co., found that a mere 5% rise in customer retention (a direct outcome of satisfied customers) could increase your profitability by a whopping 75%! In another report, Forrester found that CX leaders grow at a far faster pace than laggards – 17% vs. 3% in the same period.
There are several reasons causing this correlation.
Why Contact Centre CSAT is Critical for Profitability
It is common for contact centre managers to focus on bottom-line optimisation, ensuring that there is minimal idle time, agents are productive, and service level target maintained. But this doesn’t always take into account a contact centre’s potential as a profit centre, acting as a direct driver of customer experience, satisfaction, and loyalty.
- Satisfied customers are more likely to reach out to the contact centre again, engaging further with the brand: Positive performance metrics like a low waiting time, a short queue, and a high instance of first call resolution will assure customers that the organisation is readily available, eager to serve them. They will likely call you again, instead of trying to solve post-purchase problems in a DIY manner or turning to a competitor. This continued brand engagement translates into higher profitability
- Poor services will turn away customers like nothing else: 2020 research found that nearly three-quarters of customers would consider switching brands after a negative contact centre experience. This means that you cannot afford to ignore CSAT scores or experience ratings if you are going to maintain long-term profitability. Contact centres are a must-have component for any customer-facing brand, and without a good CSAT, you will struggle to hold on to your customer base
- Multilingual experiences can open up new geographies for revenue generation: A prerequisite for entering a new market or geography is having the capacity to serve customers in their language. Contact centres are crucial to this objective, helping to drive satisfaction among customers across various linguistic and cultural backgrounds. They could even help overcome challenges in the product experience arising from the cultural transition and enable a high CSAT through multilingual support
- Omnichannel CSAT captures how profitable you are across different digital platforms: Reaching customers on a channel of their choice is possible only when your contact centre has omnichannel service delivery capacities, maintaining the industry standard CSAT across your entire channel mix. Backed by an omnichannel contact centre, organisations can freely extend their marketing campaigns and product outreach to serve customers on various platforms, thereby boosting profitability
- Greater customer satisfaction means lower customer effort scores – a critical indicator for profitability: The lesser effort customers have to invest in product consumption and receiving support, the more likely they’ll be to return for repeat business. A contact centre with high CSAT implies that your customer effort score (CES) is relatively low, a good sign for the business
These are the top five reasons why a contact centre’s customer satisfaction ratings deserve attention from business leaders looking to grow and boost profitability.
