By Mike Cassidy, ADI | Snap One
As a business owner, how do you truly know if a customer is satisfied with your work? Unless it’s a complaint, rarely do you hear about their experiences. Were their expectations met or exceeded? Would they call on your company again and recommend you to industry friends? Without timely, relevant customer feedback, it’s hard to determine what you’re doing right and where improvements are needed. Without this foundational data, it becomes much harder to elevate standards, expand scope, develop customer relationships and align staff with company goals.
Client advocacy is the lifeline of any business, yet this important data point falls by the wayside all too often, leaving many business owners in the dark. It's time to shed some light on the situation. There are many tactics to consider—such as follow-up phone calls, for instance. But it’s unlikely that a business has the resources to aggregate the data, assign responsibility, and ensure consistent, timely customer outreach. For systems integration companies, in particular, these challenges are all too real, necessitating an easier, more effective means of gathering meaningful customer feedback, responding promptly and appropriately, and building a stronger base of referral business.
So, what’s the answer? At Parasol, an ADI | Snap One brand, we’ve had incredible success with the Net Promoter Score (NPS) system. This survey methodology engages customers and collects data through email, text, and mobile communication, giving them the freedom to respond thoughtfully at their leisure. NPS is a widely recognized metric in customer experience programs across a wide spectrum of industries and involves asking customers to simply answer the survey question: “How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?” Customers respond on a scale from 1-10. Scores are aggregated and calculated, with above 50 considered excellent—and higher scores indicating even greater customer satisfaction.
One powerful feature of NPS is the optional written feedback component, which offers deeper insights into specific service issues and opportunities for growth. This feedback has been invaluable in guiding meaningful improvements and maintaining a customer-centric approach.
Customer feedback collected through NPS can be leveraged to adopt new strategies and tools in various business departments, significantly streamlining processes, improving customer satisfaction, and increasing a business’s bottom line. The insights provided by NPS can drive businesses to continually refine procedures, fostering better collaboration and customer experiences across all areas of business.
The positive impact of NPS extends to integration partners as well. When Parasol is used on a project, clients are invited to provide feedback on their experience, creating an opportunity for thousands of data points as more than 8,000 clients are currently being served. The process is transparent to the integrator, who receives detailed weekly and quarterly reports and scores. They can use this information to identify areas of improvement, address recurring challenges, determine if solutions are working, and cultivate a culture of continuous enhancement. Based on the feedback many of our integrator customers receive, it’s clear that tech brands matter less than quality of service. Their satisfaction hinges largely on quick response and resolution to issues experienced with systems installed in their homes.
With referral business at stake, NPS survey results are crucial for the growth and success of integration firms. These scores either highlight areas for improvement or validate the effectiveness of their service and support.
As companies continue to recognize that customer satisfaction hinges more on service quality than product brands, the importance of responsive, data-driven strategies becomes even clearer. Tools like NPS help foster better relationships with clients, building lasting customer loyalty for continual growth. Through the NPS, both businesses and their clients are positioned for long-term success, setting a new standard for excellence across the custom integration industry.
