What comes to mind when you hear someone say, “A satisfied customer”? Perhaps it is an image of someone smiling with the pride of knowing he got a good deal. Or perhaps it is the childlike look of happiness someone exhibits after purchasing a new pair of shoes that are just the right color. Whatever your picture of a satisfied customer is, customer satisfaction is typically defined as the feeling that a person experiences when an offering meets his or her expectations. When an offering meets the customer’s expectations, the customer is satisfied.
Improving customer satisfaction is a goal sought by many businesses. In fact, some companies evaluate their salespeople based on how well they satisfy their customers; in other words, not only must the salespeople hit their sales targets, they have to do so in ways that satisfy customers. Teradata is one company that pays its salespeople bonuses if they meet their customer satisfaction goals.
Customer satisfaction scores have been relatively stable for the past few years as illustrated in Table 14.2 Industry-Average Customer Satisfaction Scores, 2000–2008. You might think that if increasing the satisfaction of customers were, indeed, the goal of businesses, the scores should show a steady increase. Why don’t they? Maybe it’s because just satisfying your customers is a minimal level of performance. Clearly customer satisfaction is important. However, it isn’t a good predictor of a customer’s future purchases or brand loyalty. For example, one study of customer satisfaction examined car buyers. Although the buyers rated their satisfaction levels with their purchases 90 percent or higher, only 40 percent of them purchased the same brand of car the next time around. 1
2000 |
2001 |
2002 |
2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Appliances |
85 |
82 |
82 |
81 |
82 |
80 |
81 |
82 |
80 |
Computers |
72 |
74 |
71 |
71 |
72 |
74 |
77 |
75 |
74 |
Electronics |
83 |
81 |
81 |
84 |
82 |
81 |
80 |
83 |
83 |
Cars |
80 |
80 |
80 |
80 |
79 |
80 |
81 |
82 |
82 |
Keep in mind, though, that satisfaction scores are a function of what the customer expected as well as what the company delivered. So the flat scores in Table 14.2 Industry-Average Customer Satisfaction Scores, 2000–2008reflect rising customer expectations as well as improved products. In other words, the better products get, the more it takes to satisfy consumers.
There is also a downside to continuously spending more to satisfy your customers. Recent research shows that firms that do so can experience higher sales revenues. However, after the additional spending costs are factored in, the net profits that result are sometimes marginal or even negative. Nonetheless, satisfaction is not unimportant. A company’s performance on key factors is critical both in terms of the loyalty and satisfaction it generates among its customers. 2
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