As a building products brand, an important part of thriving and staying competitive is understanding there is room for improvement and continually evolving to meet the needs and preferences of your customers.
However, it is impossible to set benchmarks for improvement or make changes without first knowing how your brand and your products are perceived by your customers.
Custom market research can help you measure customer satisfaction, giving you clear insights into where your products are excelling and where you can make improvements to boost your brand’s performance.
What is a Customer Satisfaction Score?
Customer satisfaction is one aspect of the overall customer experience. It encompasses how satisfied your customers are with your products, including the product’s
- quality
- usability
- aesthetic
- packaging appeal
- availability in your customers’ preferred channels
- price
- other factors
Customer satisfaction is captured in a metric called the customer satisfaction score (CSAT). The CSAT for different attributes would then be calculated into your overall customer satisfaction index (CSI).
The CSI is essentially an average; it is calculated by dividing the sum of CSATs for various individual attributes by the number of attributes you’re measuring. As an example, if your product quality score was 78, your product price score was 66, and your score for packaging appeal was 57, your CSI would be 67.
Why is Customer Satisfaction Important?
Measuring customer satisfaction is important because you are then capturing feedback on why your brand’s products are—or aren’t—selected by customers. This helps you understand which characteristics are essential, allowing you to differentiate and prioritize attributes in your marketing and channel messaging efforts in order to increase sales. Your CSAT will also identify areas for improvement to inform your product development efforts from a customer-centric point of view.
By calculating customer satisfaction related to your building products and making changes accordingly, you can better allocate your company’s resources, increase customer loyalty, decrease customer churn, and grow market share, even in a flat market.
How is Customer Satisfaction Measured?
So, how does one go about measuring customer satisfaction to learn where your products currently stand and where there’s room for improvement?
There are different research methods you can use to measure customer satisfaction scores for a particular building product. In general, it comes down to collecting data through product surveys fielded among your customer base and target audience.
Speaking of, dig into our report on which brands Pros prefer, and why, across 32 different building product categories when you download The Farnsworth Contractor Brand Ratings Report.
Before you start, it’s important to have clear objectives for your customer satisfaction research. Determine why you’re gathering data in the first place and establish a plan for using it. After all, you want to make the most of your efforts.
Next, determine what research tools are the right fit for your company. As mentioned above, you can calculate customer satisfaction using a linear scale to arrive at a simple CSAT.
In this case, you’d ask customers to rate their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with individual product attributes using a survey scale of your choosing. You then add up the scores for that attribute and divide it by the number of survey respondents.
The most popular linear scales for measuring satisfaction are 1 to 3; 1 to 5; 1 to 7; or 1 to 10. An odd numbered linear scale leaves room for neutrality. An even numbered linear scale will force respondents to indicate positive or negative satisfaction more directly, even if they hold mostly neutral feelings.
How you design and deliver your survey and how you ask your questions also make a difference in the success of the market research. Here are a few tips when it comes to product surveys:
1. Tailor the Format to Your Target Audience
How you disseminate your survey or gather data depends on who you’re trying to connect with. An email survey is likely a good fit for DIY homeowners who work full time jobs and may have time to fill out a quick survey during their commute or while they’re at their desk. For contractors, who are busy in the field and dealing with client communication, an email survey could get buried or forgotten. You may have more success reaching out to them over the phone or in a more direct manner via a post-service or post-purchase survey.
2. Be Selective with Your Questions
Survey fatigue can be a real issue, especially for busy professionals who have a long to-do list. That isn’t to say you can’t design a longer survey, but you don’t want to waste your customers’ time by asking throw-away or overly complicated questions. Be sure that if you choose to include a question in your survey, you plan to do something with that specific information.
3. Include at Least One Qualitative Question
Although a simple scale is the best for quantitative research that delivers objective figures, it’s often a good idea to include an open-ended question in your survey that delivers qualitative data. It gives respondents a chance to bring up a cause or explanation for their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with your product that might not have been captured in your other questions.
4. Consider an Incentive for Survey Respondents
You may get more participation by offering a small incentive for respondents to participate, especially if you’re doing a longer, more time-consuming survey. Plus, it’s one more way to positively interact with customers. This incentive could be a coupon, gift card, entry into a giveaway, or other offer that your target audience would value.
Researching Customer Satisfaction for Your Construction Products
Customer satisfaction is one of many metrics that can help you make strategic decisions for your building products brand. If you’re interested in developing custom market research to measure customer satisfaction, The Farnsworth Group can work with you to design a survey with the right questions to gather meaningful data and insights. We’ve been at this for over 30 years.
When you commission custom Brand Health research from our team of building materials industry experts, you’ll be able to see a complete picture of your brand within the competitive landscape. You’ll be provided a thorough analysis covering your brand’s customer satisfaction, among other factors, critical to making the right decisions to position your brand into the hearts and minds of target buyers.
