Customer satisfaction leads to customer loyalty, and customer loyalty is the key to regular profits and a growing business. Loyal customers not only shop with you again and again, they also bring in their friends and contacts through word of mouth. But keeping your customers satisfied is a job that requires constant attention. There are numerous ways to open up communication with your customers, but knowing what questions to ask once that line is open is critical.

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Companies like Polaris Marketing Research are excellent resources for measuring and reporting on customer satisfaction. But even if you don’t have the money in your budget to utilize such a service, you can do your own customer satisfaction research with some time and a little elbow grease. Here are three ways to gauge customer satisfaction.

1. Price and quality (aka value). Customers want a good value, and if they perceive your product as overpriced or of poor quality, they may well go elsewhere. Work to ensure that both your product quality and price point exceed your customers’ expectations.

2. Customer service and support. Apple is known for stellar customer service and support, and as such their brand name has been elevated in recent years. Compare that to Microsoft, whose long wait times for tech support and frustrating customer service experiences have led to a host of disgruntled PC users. Lesson: customer service is a major piece of overall customer satisfaction.

3. Competitive products and services. As the Apple vs. Microsoft example illustrates, consumers will compare you to your competitors and make a judgment on who to buy from based on the reputation each has made for itself. Satisfying your current customers will affect how prospective customers view you, so please your loyals in order to draw in new customers.

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