Is a satisfied customer a loyal customer?  According to Miriam-Webster’s dictionary, the definition of satisfaction is having a need fulfilled, while loyalty is a state of “unswerving in allegiance.”  So is a satisfied customer a loyal one too?  Intuitively, we understand that there is some correlation between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.  But if common sense dictates that there’s a connection, why are so many companies doing a poor job of keeping and building loyalty among their customer base?

Unfortunately, there’s no exact recipe on how to turn a satisfied customer into a loyal one.  Companies have tried to find the magic formula: surveys, NPS scores, Facebook pages, contact center notes, and other mechanisms to listen to and engage with their customers.  However, there are too many sources of feedback (such as those listed above) – which are then multiplied by the thousands or even millions of individuals providing that feedback.  So even with all of this data, why are companies still struggling to convert the satisfied into the loyal?  This challenge lies in a few critical areas:

1. A number is just a number: You may know your NPS score or that a customer rates you a “4 out of 5” on a survey, but numbers don’t tell you what is driving the score or the “why” for the rating.
2. Data overload: Some companies have gone through the effort to collect customer data to understand the why of a rating (think of all the “comments” sections you’ve completed in surveys), but they don’t have the time or staff to read through millions of comments.  The incredible growth of social media has only exacerbated this challenge by providing entirely new feedback channels.
3. Rear view mirror challenge: If a company has taken on the Herculean effort to collect, categorize, and understand customer comments, it often takes many months before all of that data is analyzed and acted on—so the data is transformed into actionable information too late to address the problem.
4. Silos everywhere: Customers provide feedback on every aspect of their experience: product, service, distribution method/channel, etc.  When companies review feedback, it’s usually on an ad-hoc, department-by-department basis.  Product development may want to identify new features; marketing wants to measure brand sentiment; customer care wants to measure wait times.  However, no one is looking holistically at the entire 360-degree customer experience—the first step in turning a satisfied customer into a loyal one.

There is a way to understand the path of converting a satisfied customer into a loyal customer: Text Analytics.  Text analytics enables companies to listen to the Voice of the Customer (VOC) through their own words, providing a direct path to their hearts and wallets.  With text analytics, companies see what is driving the “why” of a NPS score, automatically process millions of pieces of text data and turn them into actionable information in a timely manner, and break down silos to obtain that 360 view so satisfied customers become loyal ones.

By: Sidra Berman, Vice President, Marketing at Clarabridge

To learn more, attend our webinar hosted by Loyalty 360, "The Dynamic Duo: Customer Satisfaction And Loyalty: And How Text Analytics powers It All" on October 13th at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Tags: Data Analytics, Voice of the Customer