Offensive vs Defensive CSAT

When you are trying to improve satisfaction, there are multiple programs you can try to employ. Some work on training employees better, others improve their products, and so on. You have plenty of possibilities at your disposal, and you do not necessarily have to limit which of these strategies you choose to use. One of the things you are going to need to choose from is whether you want to take an offensive customer satisfaction approach, or a defensive customer satisfaction approach.

Offensive strategies are when you try to improve satisfaction of everyone, including new customers, actively looking at ways to make customers happier. Offensive approaches are designed to make sure that your overall customer satisfaction is as high as possible with all of those that choose to keep coming back to your company.

Defensive satisfaction strategies are focused on avoiding loss. Defensive strategies target the customers that look like they may be leaving your company, and look for ways to keep their business before they defect to another company. Defensive strategies can target all customers, but they’re not necessarily about raising the overall satisfaction scores so much as they are trying to avoid the lowest ones deciding that they need to go elsewhere.

It’s difficult to compare these broad strategies when it comes to which are most useful. Many experts argue for both sides – some say it is important to make every customer happy, especially if you want things like word of mouth marketing and an increase in purchasing. Others believe the most important strategy is to simply try not to lose customers.

Customers that defect are very hard to get back, and in some ways satisfaction scores are not as important to the long term health of the company as simply retaining business. Which you choose is up to your personal philosophy and the belief you subscribe to. Experts can reasonably disagree on which is the most effective, and in some cases it may be product/company based (meaning that depending on the type of company and products you offer, what works for one company may not work for another).

Some companies choose to adopt both offensive and defensive strategies. But regardless of which you choose, it’s clear that these two ways of thinking are much different, and may affect which type of customer satisfaction program you choose to use.