It seems self evident that companies should try to satisfy their customers. Satisfied customers usually return and buy more, they tell other people about their experiences, and they may well pay a premium for the privilege of doing business with a supplier they trust. Statistics are bandied around that suggest that the cost of keeping a customer is only one tenth of winning a new one. Therefore, when we win a customer, we should hang on to them.
Why is it that we can think of more examples of companies failing to satisfy us rather than when we have been satisfied? There could be a number of reasons for this. When we buy a product or service, we expect it to be right. We don’t jump up and down with glee saying “isn’t it wonderful, it actually worked”. That is what we paid our money for. Add to this our world of ever exacting standards. We now have products available to us that would astound our great grandparents and yet we quickly become used to them. The bar is getting higher and higher. At the same time our lives are ever more complicated with higher stress levels. Delighting customers and achieving high customer satisfaction scores in this environment is ever more difficult. And even if your customers are completely satisfied with your product or service, significant chunks of them could leave you and start doing business with your competition.
A market trader has a continuous finger on the pulse of customer satisfaction. Direct contact with customers indicates what he is doing right or where he is going wrong. Such informal feedback is valuable in any company but hard to formalise and control in anything much larger than a corner shop. For this reason surveys are necessary to measure and track customer satisfaction.
Developing a customer satisfaction programme is not just about carrying out a survey. Surveys provide the reading that shows where attention is required but in many respects, this is the easy part. Very often, major long lasting improvements need a fundamental transformation in the company, probably involving training of the staff, possibly involving cultural change. The result should be financially beneficial with less customer churn, higher market shares, premium prices, stronger brands and reputation, and happier staff. However, there is a price to pay for these improvements. Costs will be incurred in the market research survey. Time will be spent working out an action plan. Training may well be required to improve the customer service. The implications of customer satisfaction surveys go far beyond the survey itself and will only be successful if fully supported
WHAT SHOULD BE MEASURED?
In customer satisfaction research we seek the views of respondents on a variety of issues that will show how the company is performing and how it can improve. This understanding is obtained at a high level (“how satisfied are you the ABC Ltd overall?”) and at a very specific level (“how satisfied are you with the clarity of invoices?”).
High level issues are included in most customer satisfaction surveys and they could be captured by questions such as:
• What is your overall satisfaction with ABC Ltd?
• How likely or unlikely are you to buy from ABC Ltd again?
• How likely or unlikely would you be to recommend ABC Ltd to a friend or colleague?
It is at the more specific level of questioning that things become more difficult. Some issues are of obvious importance and every supplier is expected to perform to a minimum acceptable level on them. These are the hygiene factors. If a company fails on any of these issues they would quickly lose market share or go out of business. An airline must offer safety but the level of in-flight service is a variable. These variables such as in-flight service are often the issues that differentiate companies and create the satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
Working out what questions to ask at a detailed level means seeing the world from the customers’ points of view. What do they consider important? These factors or attributes will differ from company to company and there could be a long list. They could include the following
Benchmarking in customer satisfaction can go beyond comparisons with direct competitors. Some firms have taken this type of benchmarking a step further. Instead of just developing a benchmark on competitors, they identify the best firm in any industry at a particular activity. L.L. Bean may be benchmarked for telephone order processing or customer service. American Express may be benchmarked for billing and payment transactions.
There has been considerable research into the links between customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction – Kaplan & Norton (1996), McCarthy (1997), Heskett, Sasser & Schlesinger (1997). The argument is a very obvious one. Happy employees work harder and try harder and so create satisfied customers. A co-ordinated customer satisfaction programme should consider linking with an employee attitude survey. The employee attitude survey could also be used to check out how well staff believe they are satisfying customers as there could be a dangerous gap between internal perceptions of performance and those of c
Customer Satisfaction Research
Most companies lose 45% to 50% of their customers every five years, and winning new customers can be up to 20 times more expensive than retaining existing customers. Just a 5% reduction in the customer defection rate can increase profits by 25% to 85%, depending on the industry. You therefore need to know what makes buyers and specifiers choose one supplier rather than another. On your behalf we need to ask the right questions and devise techniques to obtain the right answers.
Our customer satisfaction programme is designed to help you win and maintain customers for life. After all, satisfaction usually leads to a customer returning and buying more, they in turn tell other people about their experiences, and they may well pay a premium for the privilege of doing business with a supplier they trust.
Whilst the purpose of customer satisfaction research is to improve customer satisfaction, so often surveys sit collecting dust. Worse than that, customers have generously given their time to assist in the survey believing that some positive action will take place. Their expectations will have been raised. The process of collecting the data can seem easier than taking action to improve satisfaction levels.
In any customer loyalty research there will be quick fixes – actions that can be taken today or tomorrow that will have immediate effect. In the longer term, cultural changes may well be required to improve customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, and that is more difficult.
A third of all research carried out at B2B International is customer satisfaction research. Over the years we have conducted hundreds of customer satisfaction surveys leading to a Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) portfolio. This enables comparisons with other industries to be made and proves useful in benchmarking our clients for improvement in the future.
To learn more about how B2B International can help you to better understand lapsed customers and retain more, satisfied customers, contact our Customer Satisfaction Research Team.
Customer satisfaction is highly depends on the following marketing termilogy;
About the product • Quality of the product
• Length of life of the product
• Design of the product
• Consistency of quality
• Range of products
• Processibility of the product
About delivery • Delivery on time
• Speed of delivery
About staff and service • Courtesy from sales staff
• Representative's availability
• Representative's knowledge
• Reliability of returning calls
• Friendliness of the sales staff
• Complaint resolution
• Responsiveness to enquiries
• After sales service
• Technical service
About the company • Reputation of the company
• Ease of doing business
• Invoice clarity
• Invoices on time
About price • Market price
• Total cost of use
• Value for money
Why is it that we can think of more examples of companies failing to satisfy us rather than when we have been satisfied? There could be a number of reasons for this. When we buy a product or service, we expect it to be right. We don’t jump up and down with glee saying “isn’t it wonderful, it actually worked”. That is what we paid our money for. Add to this our world of ever exacting standards. We now have products available to us that would astound our great grandparents and yet we quickly become used to them. The bar is getting higher and higher. At the same time our lives are ever more complicated with higher stress levels. Delighting customers and achieving high customer satisfaction scores in this environment is ever more difficult. And even if your customers are completely satisfied with your product or service, significant chunks of them could leave you and start doing business with your competition.
A market trader has a continuous finger on the pulse of customer satisfaction. Direct contact with customers indicates what he is doing right or where he is going wrong. Such informal feedback is valuable in any company but hard to formalise and control in anything much larger than a corner shop. For this reason surveys are necessary to measure and track customer satisfaction.
Developing a customer satisfaction programme is not just about carrying out a survey. Surveys provide the reading that shows where attention is required but in many respects, this is the easy part. Very often, major long lasting improvements need a fundamental transformation in the company, probably involving training of the staff, possibly involving cultural change. The result should be financially beneficial with less customer churn, higher market shares, premium prices, stronger brands and reputation, and happier staff. However, there is a price to pay for these improvements. Costs will be incurred in the market research survey. Time will be spent working out an action plan. Training may well be required to improve the customer service. The implications of customer satisfaction surveys go far beyond the survey itself and will only be successful if fully supported
WHAT SHOULD BE MEASURED?
In customer satisfaction research we seek the views of respondents on a variety of issues that will show how the company is performing and how it can improve. This understanding is obtained at a high level (“how satisfied are you the ABC Ltd overall?”) and at a very specific level (“how satisfied are you with the clarity of invoices?”).
High level issues are included in most customer satisfaction surveys and they could be captured by questions such as:
• What is your overall satisfaction with ABC Ltd?
• How likely or unlikely are you to buy from ABC Ltd again?
• How likely or unlikely would you be to recommend ABC Ltd to a friend or colleague?
It is at the more specific level of questioning that things become more difficult. Some issues are of obvious importance and every supplier is expected to perform to a minimum acceptable level on them. These are the hygiene factors. If a company fails on any of these issues they would quickly lose market share or go out of business. An airline must offer safety but the level of in-flight service is a variable. These variables such as in-flight service are often the issues that differentiate companies and create the satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
Working out what questions to ask at a detailed level means seeing the world from the customers’ points of view. What do they consider important? These factors or attributes will differ from company to company and there could be a long list. They could include the following
Benchmarking in customer satisfaction can go beyond comparisons with direct competitors. Some firms have taken this type of benchmarking a step further. Instead of just developing a benchmark on competitors, they identify the best firm in any industry at a particular activity. L.L. Bean may be benchmarked for telephone order processing or customer service. American Express may be benchmarked for billing and payment transactions.
There has been considerable research into the links between customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction – Kaplan & Norton (1996), McCarthy (1997), Heskett, Sasser & Schlesinger (1997). The argument is a very obvious one. Happy employees work harder and try harder and so create satisfied customers. A co-ordinated customer satisfaction programme should consider linking with an employee attitude survey. The employee attitude survey could also be used to check out how well staff believe they are satisfying customers as there could be a dangerous gap between internal perceptions of performance and those of c
Customer Satisfaction Research
Most companies lose 45% to 50% of their customers every five years, and winning new customers can be up to 20 times more expensive than retaining existing customers. Just a 5% reduction in the customer defection rate can increase profits by 25% to 85%, depending on the industry. You therefore need to know what makes buyers and specifiers choose one supplier rather than another. On your behalf we need to ask the right questions and devise techniques to obtain the right answers.
Our customer satisfaction programme is designed to help you win and maintain customers for life. After all, satisfaction usually leads to a customer returning and buying more, they in turn tell other people about their experiences, and they may well pay a premium for the privilege of doing business with a supplier they trust.
Whilst the purpose of customer satisfaction research is to improve customer satisfaction, so often surveys sit collecting dust. Worse than that, customers have generously given their time to assist in the survey believing that some positive action will take place. Their expectations will have been raised. The process of collecting the data can seem easier than taking action to improve satisfaction levels.
In any customer loyalty research there will be quick fixes – actions that can be taken today or tomorrow that will have immediate effect. In the longer term, cultural changes may well be required to improve customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, and that is more difficult.
A third of all research carried out at B2B International is customer satisfaction research. Over the years we have conducted hundreds of customer satisfaction surveys leading to a Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) portfolio. This enables comparisons with other industries to be made and proves useful in benchmarking our clients for improvement in the future.
To learn more about how B2B International can help you to better understand lapsed customers and retain more, satisfied customers, contact our Customer Satisfaction Research Team.
Customer satisfaction is highly depends on the following marketing termilogy;
About the product • Quality of the product
• Length of life of the product
• Design of the product
• Consistency of quality
• Range of products
• Processibility of the product
About delivery • Delivery on time
• Speed of delivery
About staff and service • Courtesy from sales staff
• Representative's availability
• Representative's knowledge
• Reliability of returning calls
• Friendliness of the sales staff
• Complaint resolution
• Responsiveness to enquiries
• After sales service
• Technical service
About the company • Reputation of the company
• Ease of doing business
• Invoice clarity
• Invoices on time
About price • Market price
• Total cost of use
• Value for money
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