What is Customer Satisfaction?
Customer satisfaction is a term generally used to to measure a customer's perception of a company's products and services.
It's not a straight forward science however, as customer
satisfaction will vary from person to person, depending on a
whole host of variables which may be both psychological and
physical.
The challenge for companies in recent years has been to measure
these perceptions.
Measurement usually makes use of a feedback survey of some kind.
Customers are asked to respond to a set of questions or
statements using a 4 or 5 point scale. The customer completes
the survey by evaluating the service they have received in terms
of their perception and expectations.
Companies can compare the completed surveys with previous
surveys to see if they are improving or getting worse, or
benchmark their satisfaction survey results with that of other
companies.
The ultimate aim of measuring customer satisfaction must be to
act on the information gathered, close the "gaps" between the
customer's perception of service and the actual service
provided.
Recent thinking by leading customer service gurus such as Dr Ken
Blanchard concludes that customers should not be merely
satisfied they should be delighted.
That's one more challenge for companies who claim to have
achieved 100% customer satisfaction.
