There is one topic that is guaranteed to come up in every discussion I have had with a client looking to measure their customer satisfaction: what question should we ask? 

My answer is usually (like so often in market research): well, it depends.

For many years, the common wisdom suggested that Net Promoter Score (NPS) was always the answer. So much so that it gained acceptance among the C-suite and became a KPI for many senior executives. The real benefit of this was not so much the metric - which is fine and even preferable in many situations, but limited in others - but the fact that it put the Voice of the Customer on the radar of senior management. 

If you operate in a category where recommendation is important, then NPS might be a perfect fit. If not, it might be better to look to something else that is more relevant. 

For many companies, a simple 1-5 scale of very dissatisfied through to very satisfied might do the job. Others might want to combine several measures to produce a customer satisfaction index. Even "how likely are you to purchase again?" might be the right question for your brand.

The question you must ask

No matter which key metric you decide to use, there is one question that you must ask in your VOC research: one that gets to the heart of why they gave the score they did. This is where the real insight can be uncovered.

This question can be asked in a number of different ways – whether it's a simple "why did you give that score" or something more probing – but it needs to be there, and you need to study the responses. A smart, research-optimised AI approach can help with this.

When it comes to VOC and customer satisfaction, the important thing is not so much the metric chosen, but that you are asking it at all, that management has bought into its importance, and that you do something with the results to improve your business.