Customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys help companies identify opportunities for growth, but that feedback can’t reach its full potential without the context of other key customer data. When you measure CSAT with Salesforce, you can turn feedback into action.
Why Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Belongs in Salesforce
If you survey your customers, you probably do it for a number of reasons: to measure service quality, monitor customer health, generate ideas for new products or services, or all of the above. But once you have the feedback, what do you actually do with it? How do you get from observation to innovation?
For many companies, that’s a complicated question. Customer feedback may inform your customer-facing teams and keep executives clued in on how customers are feeling, but that’s often about the extent of it. It’s not for lack of effort either. Without the proper tools, it’s tough to turn a CSAT score into impactful, strategic moves.
That’s where Salesforce comes in. Today, it’s the most popular CRM software in the world. Thousands of companies use it to manage their customer relationships, so it makes sense that their customer feedback should live alongside that wealth of customer data. When you integrate survey results with Salesforce, you can develop feedback cycles for proactive customer care and cut down on the pitfalls that lead to friction and churn.
Rather than sending a survey and mining the results for trends, survey responses automatically map to Contacts, Accounts, Cases, and more, giving you a 360-degree view of the customer. You know what they’ve purchased, what you’re trying to sell them, how well you’re supporting them, how often you’re contacting them, and what they want to see next.
With this level of integration, business leaders can spot trends and make educated, data-driven decisions. Plus, every leader gains visibility into the customer experience, which cab help them manage their departments more effectively.
Measuring CSAT with Salesforce
Nearly two thirds of consumers switched from at least one provider in 2014 due to poor service, according to Accenture’s Digital Disconnect in Customer Engagement. What’s more, 82% of those who switched say they would have stayed with the provider had they taken steps to address the customer’s issues. Even more than pricing, consumers consider the overall customer experience when deciding who they’ll buy from.
Source: Accenture
If you already run customer surveys, you likely send them after major customer touchpoints, like customer service calls, purchases, and in-person visits. Customer feedback can motivate customer service teams and reveal quality issues quickly.
It doesn’t end there though. When you integrate survey data with Salesforce, you can effectively automate customer experience measurement. Customer survey responses live alongside the key customer info in Salesforce, giving you a comprehensive look at customer health and happiness.
A CSAT survey asks customers for feedback on a specific experience. When it’s sent and feedback is collected, the results are mapped directly to customer records. From there, you can analyze survey data and spot trends easily.
For example, if West Coast customers generally rate customer service more favorably, that might indicate better service coverage. Or if CSAT ratings are consistently poor around lunchtime, you might need to revisit the staffing schedule.
This complete customer view helps customer service teams identify the factors affecting customer happiness. That level of insight lays the path for action. Maybe the same question keeps coming up around one topic, indicating that self-service resources are lacking. Your customer service or community team can update the corresponding knowledge base article.
Of course, the factors impacting customer happiness are often outside customer service’s control. When that’s the case, service leaders need tangible data to share with other departments. Consistent customer satisfaction metrics help them zero in on the source of trouble. With data in hand, departments can take steps to improve the overall customer experience.
PRO TIP: Boost survey response rates by customizing your survey timing. Salesforce workflows can trigger CSAT surveys based on specific conditions—like after 15 days have passed since the customer last shared feedback.
CSAT Survey Cheatsheet
SEND IT AFTER:
Email support cases
Phone calls
Live chats
Training sessions
In-person visits
THE RESULTS REVEAL:
Service quality by channel
Customer expectations
Potential reasons for churn
Product satisfaction
Feature and service requests
USE THE DATA TO:
Find gaps in support coverage
Design effective customer resources
Share retention data with customer success
Send product feedback to other teams
Make decisions about new services and offerings
Top Use Case: The Case Closed CSAT Survey
The most common CSAT use case is the case closed customer satisfaction survey. A powerful indicator of customer happiness, case closed CSAT helps service teams monitor case resolution quality.
To send it, you’ll create a rule in Salesforce that sends the survey invitation email whenever a Service Cloud case is marked “closed.” You can limit the frequency based on a variety of factors—like how recently the customer shared feedback—or send the survey with every case closure.
The most effective customer service teams typically have high case closed CSAT scores because they’re focused on finding solutions efficiently. Lower CSAT scores usually reflect issues with customer service or product quality.
Alone, a CSAT score can tell you a lot about your customer service team and your customer base. But to take action on the data, you need more context. When you measure customer satisfaction in Salesforce, support teams can analyze CSAT scores alongside other meaningful factors, like the customer’s location, account age, company size, and more. From there, piecing together the customer story is much simpler.
Taking Action with CSAT in Salesforce
Trigger email alerts for poor CSAT ratings
When a customer has a negative experience with customer service, you want to resolve it as quickly as possible. Salesforce workflows can send email alerts to team members instantly when customers give poor CSAT ratings. This clues in the right people—like the service agent, service manager, and/or account manager—so they can help solve the problem.
Beyond improving communication, this sets the tone for team collaboration. Account managers who may be unaware of ongoing issues can reach out to customers to help repair the damage. And best of all, all this can happen without taking up more of the case agent’s time.
Create follow-up tasks for record owners
It’s tough to bridge the gap between customer service and other departments when their data lives in different places. To increase accountability, you can design workflows that create tasks for the record owner automatically, all based on the CSAT rating a customer leaves.
For example, a CSAT rating of 6 or lower could create a follow-up task for the account manager. This loops in the customer’s main point of contact so they can contact the customer or reach out to the agent for more information.
With GetFeedback Actions, you can set conditions directly in GetFeedback to surface time-sensitive feedback and assign specific actions to internal teams. So, when a low CSAT score is received from a high-value customer, trigger a task and due date for an assigned Service Manager. This prompts quick outreach to course correct when a customer is dissatisfied.
Reopen cases with poor CSAT ratings
When a customer rates an agent poorly, a Salesforce workflow can automatically trigger a case reopen. Maybe there was a miscommunication or the customer isn’t happy with how their question was handled. The reopen trigger gives the agent an opportunity to follow up and rectify the situation.
GetFeedback for Service Cloud
Any company can create branded, mobile-ready customers surveys with GetFeedback, but Salesforce Service Cloud users gain unique benefits from the integration. You can set survey responses to automatically associate with existing customer data in Salesforce. And for deeper insights, it’s simple to segment individual customer responses using Salesforce or GetFeedback Analytics.
Customer feedback is the core of all customer-centric organizations. Every company wants to know its customer satisfaction score, but few have a solution that helps them do something more with that number. GetFeedback for Salesforce Service Cloud puts you in control of your customer insights, so you can use that data for good.
Use our free interactive CSAT calculator to measure your Customer Satisfaction Score and its impact on ROI. You’ll get custom recommendations based on your score.
