How do you customize gap analysis for customer satisfaction for different segments, markets, or channels?

1 Why customize gap analysis for customer satisfaction?

Customer satisfaction is not a one-size-fits-all concept. Different segments, markets, or channels may have different expectations, preferences, needs, and pain points that affect how they perceive and evaluate your offerings. To get a more accurate and actionable insight into how to satisfy your customers, you need to customize your gap analysis for each segment, market, or channel. This way, you can tailor your strategies, tactics, and solutions to the specific needs and wants of your target audiences.

2 How to segment your customers for gap analysis?

Before customizing your gap analysis for customer satisfaction, you need to segment your customers into meaningful and relevant groups. There are various ways to do this, depending on your goals, data, and resources. Common criteria for segmentation include demographic factors such as age, gender, income, education, and location; behavioral attributes like purchase history, usage frequency, loyalty, and feedback; psychographic elements like values, attitudes, interests, personality, and lifestyle; and needs-based considerations such as problems, goals, motivations, and expectations. You can use one or more of these criteria to create segments that reflect the diversity of your customer base. Additionally, surveys, interviews, focus groups, analytics tools or CRM systems can be used to collect and analyze data on your segments.

3 How to define the desired performance for each segment?

Once you have segmented your customers, you need to define the desired or optimal performance for each segment - the level of customer satisfaction that you want to achieve or maintain. To do this, you can use various methods and sources such as benchmarking against competitors or industry standards, following best practices, listening to customer feedback and understanding their expectations, and measuring customer loyalty. You can use quantitative or qualitative measures to define the desired performance, such as ratings, scores, percentages, comments, testimonials, etc., as well as different scales or dimensions to capture the different aspects of customer satisfaction like quality, value, service, convenience, etc.

4 How to measure the current performance for each segment?

After defining the desired performance for each segment, you need to measure the current or actual performance for each group. Surveys, analytics, reviews, complaints, and retention are all methods you can use to evaluate customer satisfaction. You should use the same measures, scales, and dimensions as you did for defining the desired performance to ensure consistency and comparability. Additionally, different time frames or intervals can be used to measure the current performance - such as monthly, quarterly, or yearly - in order to effectively track customer satisfaction.