Chocolate. Shareholders. Our first kiss. None of these things. Nothing is more important than the satisfaction of our customers.

They mean everything.

Ultimately, it is down to the consumer to decide the success of your business – and their judgement is final.

That is why the evaluation of customer happiness is a major contributing factor in industry reports, and it’s something we really do keep an ever-watchful eye upon.

It can, and should, affect how a business ranks within a report and could see your company fall to the bottom of the pile if your customer score is not up to scratch in relation to competitors.

However, a worrying trend has been found by Forrester – there is a lack of satisfied consumers using social relationship platforms.

 

Customer Satisfaction and Social Relationship Platforms

 

A freshly released report from the research organisation investigated this trend by asking a selection of marketers if they would recommend their SRP vendor to a colleague.

Shockingly, only 27% of those questioned would want to promote their current vendor, and overall social relationships platforms have a Net Promoter Score of -16.

Yes, you didn’t misread that number, it’s negative.

Forrester Report

This negative score indicates a need for change in the sector and a greater focus on customer centricity.

In an industry where it is essential to put your figures into context with those that around you, these results have given us an interesting benchmark to place ourselves against, even though the technology evaluated is slightly different.

Although we cannot reveal our own Net Promoter Score (note: it’s highly positive), we were extremely pleased to see it soar above this disappointing average for social relationship platforms.

To measure how happy our customer base is, Brandwatch uses several techniques to ensure we are constantly aware of our own perception by those who know us the best.

The Customer Survey

 

Each year we conduct a customer survey which asks our clients to evaluate our services and products.

This allows for us to understand which features are the most useful for our customers, and what changes we may need to make to improve their journey with us.

One of the most important figures that we garner from this information is the Customer Recommendation Score.

For this question we ask our customers on a scale of 1-10 how likely they are to suggest the use of our app to a peer.

In 2013 we scored an average of 8/10.

G2 Crowd

 

Reviews of products on external sites are also insightful indicators of how well companies are doing in relation to their competition.

One of the sites that actively follow is G2 crowd.

This network allows customers to leave reviews of SaaS products, which are then segmented into sectors for comparative analysis.

All the recommendations are conducted through authenticated Linkedin profiles, to help create a fair and qualified base of customer recommendations.

 

G2 crowd grid

In the most recent report released by G2 crowd, Brandwatch was named a high performer after receiving the highest customer satisfaction in the industry sector of social media monitoring.

We were delighted to hear that 92% of reviewers would also recommend us to a peer and this grid demonstrates the state of the sector.

Although the social/tech space clearly struggles to generate genuine customer advocacy, as exemplified by Forrester, it’s truly great to see that Brandwatch has come out triumphant in the customer satisfaction stakes.

We love hearing honest feedback on our product from the people that matter the most – our clients, so let us know what’s on your mind.

Thanks guys!