How do you know that your CUSTOMERS are not satisfied (expect of direct complaint)?

It is understood that only4% of your customers come to you with the complaint and56% of them would try a new product or service. it is6 to7 times costlier to get a new customer than to retain an old customer. The negative voice of the dissatisfied customers will reach twice the amount of ears than the positive voice of the satisfied customers. It is very difficult to understand a dissatisfied customer. Hence it is always important to probe the customer to find the hidden need of the customers. There might be so many reasons for a customer to get upset with your product or services. Spend some extra time with your customers to keep them happy. It is worth the effort..

1. Monitor and identify customer complaints using social media monitoring tools and pages.

2. Monitor and identify customer complaints using customer support software

3. Record customer complaints and identify using a customer support phone number

4. Google Alerts

5. Customer feedback surveys

Thank you all for your valuable input.

I believe it is easy to know that your customer is satisfied. If the customer keeps coming back, brings other customers, showing enthusiasm when talking to you....

Even though, that the customer keeps coming back is not a certain indication that he is satisfied. He may comes back because he has no alternatives at the moment, but when he finds an alternative, he will fly away.

But knowing that he is not satisfied is much more difficult. People tend not to give their negative opinion about you when you ask for it, mainly due to their polite behavior.  Surveys may say nothing about the exact customer's feeling about your company or your product. You don't know how honest the customer is with filling the surveys.

Even a complaining customer, is not a certain indication for dissatisfaction. Customers may come with a complaint due to their interest and involvement in seeing your company improving. They may also complaint with the intention to get extra benefits.

Therefore, I believe that customer satisfaction is a goal that you may not reach, but you should keep trying to get as close to it as possible.

When they stop coming back as often, 

With regards to my Manufacturing backgrounds, the most significant way expressing a customer's non satisfaction is by far the verbal or/& written claims.

Then in second rang is the dead event (in many many cases but not all the cases) no new customer's orders !

There are many indications:

• Their response towards you.
• If they start preferring other vendors over you.
• Less response to your contacting them.
• Not letting any information shared with you.

Through Customer's/Market's Feedback....

I appreciate the answers contributed by the forum which really explain the whole thing  but for one that is:

As a skilled  sales person you are always in a position to read customers mind and judge whether the customer is satisfied or dissatisfied until the sales cycle is complete.

1. By fall rate of sales.
2. Low observation of market share.
3. High competition or raise new products and developed services by competitors,
4. Low loyalty of customers.
5. Poor planning for development and researches.

Customer satisfaction is notoriously difficult to measure for several reasons.

To begin with, you have to count on customers not only to give feedback, but also to be honest in their assessment. Many people, when satisfied, feel no need to contact the company, while others will quietly grumble about flaws in service or products and swear off a company without ever seeking redress or voicing their complaints so that the situation can be remedied.

Requirements for satisfaction are not only unique to each individual customer, they can be extremely difficult to quantify, even on a personal level. However, if you are able to set standards for employee conduct where interactions with customers are concerned (both from a point-of-sale and a customer service perspective) then you can certainly implement procedures and guidelines to ensure customer satisfaction and measure their success. You can start by going to the source.

1. Survey Customers

This is probably the only way to get customer feedback unless they contact you, which most people are too busy to bother with unless they are extremely upset for some reason.

You can provide surveys in several ways (through mail, email, or over the phone) and in order to get the best information, you should allow customers to answer questions on a weighted scale (as in “Rate your experience on a scale of1 to5 with1 indicating complete dissatisfaction and5 indicating complete satisfaction”). You may also want to survey repeat customers to see how their experience changes over time.

2. Understand Expectations

If you know what your customers expect from you, it logically follows that you will be better able to offer them an enjoyable experience. So make an effort to discover the expectations of your customers in terms of both service and products in order to ensure that you’re meeting their needs.

3. Find Out Where You’re Failing

If you’re not meeting customer requirements, you need to find out where the failure is occurring. Are the products less than what is advertised? Are employees making promises that cannot be met? Are customer service representatives dropping the ball on dispelling customer concerns and managing their complaints? You may need to take a step back and reevaluate your management abilities. Learning how to manage your employees better will undoubtedly have a positive affect on your customer service. Whatever the case, it would behoove you to know where the lines of communication are breaking down so that relationships with customers can be mended.

4. Pinpoint Specifics

Whether a customer is satisfied or not, the data you collect will need to accurately assess what is working and what isn’t. So inquiries into level of satisfaction should include more than just the overall experience. You need to determine the products or services they purchased, what they liked or disliked about their sales interaction, how the actual purchase compared to their expectations, and any suggestions they have for improvement.

5. Assess the Competition

If you don’t know why customers prefer another brand over yours, you cannot hope to keep them from flocking to the competition. So as part of your survey process, you may want to consider inviting customers to compare and contrast similar products or companies to find out what they are offering that you are not

When they are restless complaint