What is the difference between Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty?
First, we will define each term. Customer Satisfaction is a measurement of customer attitudes regarding products, services, and brands. Customer Loyalty on the other hand has two definitions. Customer Loyalty consists of loyalty behavior (also referred to as customer retention) which is the act of customers making repeat purchases of current brands, rather than choosing competitor brands. Secondly, Customer Loyalty encompasses loyalty attitudes which are opinions and feelings about products, services, brands, or businesses that are associated with repeat purchases. At times, customers display loyalty behavior without having loyalty attitudes. Vice versa, occasionally customers show loyalty attitudes without exhibiting any loyalty behavior.
Customers are the link to your business success. Your business simply cannot afford to lose customers to your competition. Customer satisfaction and customer loyalty should be incorporated into the long-term goals of your business. Your business can do this by creating a plan for customer satisfaction feedback into the overall business plan. A plan to survey customers to measure customer satisfaction can be a simple and easy way to keep the loyalty of your customers. Asking customer satisfaction and loyalty questions can help your business gather the insights you need to keep your customers happy.
The difference between customer satisfaction surveys and customer loyalty surveys is that customer satisfaction surveys are focused on measuring customers’ current attitudes, where as customer loyalty surveys focus on predicting customer behavior and attitudes. As you begin your plan to measure customer loyalty, consider online survey software. With online survey software, you can either create a separate customer loyalty survey or include customer loyalty focused questions within a customer satisfaction survey. Regardless of your survey research method, having an understanding of customer loyalty is an indispensable piece to the success of your business.