How Regularly Do You Assess Client Satisfaction?

Our sales trainers report that in every sales management training course one of the most hotly debated subjects is that of getting the sales force to recognise the customer’s needs and then fulfill these. Just why this is an important subject is obvious when you consider the link between ensuring your customers are fully satisfied and the on-going success of your company.

Despite the importance of customer satisfaction on profitability, how many companies really know how satisfied their clients really are?

Often the people in charge shy away from investigating client satisfaction as a result of prejudices against satisfaction analyses. Only 28% of organisations regularly assess the satisfaction of their customers according to a study carried out by the WHU in Koblenz under the direction of Professor Christian Homburg.

The survey involved 1,000 managers in marketing and sales positions from industrial goods companies. The survey not only provides information about the current state of client satisfaction evaluation, it also shows the uses customer satisfaction surveys offer and provides recommendations which can be implemented in practice.

Which client groups are targeted in customer satisfaction assessments? Most organisations limit themselves to asking existing customers. Potential customers, on the other hand, are rarely asked. This selection appears completely sensible, bearing in mind that new customer acquisition is considerably more expensive than caring for existing customers. Therefore the main priority is to make sure that existing customers are satisfied.

Who is asked? Organisations generally ask product users or key decision-makers. Unfortunately mostorganisations tend to limit themselves to asking just one person. It is worth bearing in mind, however, that one person can only reasonalbly assess one part of a supplier’s performance range. It is therefore important to ask several people from various departments within the customer’s organisation to get the whole picture.

What do organisations ask? As the following chart shows, customer satisfaction analyses tend to concentrate on the technical service side and on the actual product. Organisations should bear in mind the fact that other processes in order processing/logistics, quality of customer care by the sales department and delivery times are comparatively seldom investigated.

Which performance criteria are assessed?

• Technical service 90%
• Product 84%
• Company (in general) 74%
• Order processing/logistics 68%
• Sales department client care 66%
• Comparison with competitors 58%
• Delivery times 55%
• Other 13%
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• Note: It is in these other areas that gaps in customer service performance lie.
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• Organisations who limit themselves to assessing only technical service and the product are losing a substantial amount of information about customers level of satisfaction.
  
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• How and how often are customers questioned?
• Approximately 68% of the organisations asked said that they assess customer satisfaction through personal questionnaires. In more than half the organisations asked (58%) this is carried out by their own sales people.
  
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• Herein lies one of the critical points of satisfaction analyses. What customers say about their satisfaction is usually distorted by the presence of an interviewer, especially if this is one of the organisation’s own sales people (this is known as “the interviewer effect”). Experts believe that it is illusory to try and collect objective information about customer satisfaction in this way. The only way to collect reliable feedback is to use a written questionnaire.
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• The results on how regularly customer satisfaction assessments are carried out is also very unsatisfactory. Only 11% of the organisations asked carry out an annual assessment.
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• What prejudices do organisations have against customer satisfaction assessments?
• The problems of customer satisfaction analyses are generally overestimated. Oft-quoted isues of resources (time, personnel, cost intensity) and uncertainty about know-how are over-rated.
  
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• It can be concluded from the experiences of organisations which carry out customer satisfaction analyses: The problems which arise during customer satisfaction analyses are relatively minor. 90% of the organisations asked believe that the use of carrying out such an analysis, on the other hand, is high to very high.
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• A dangerous misapprehension is the assumption that organisations can form an opinion about customer satisfaction by purely looking at complaint statistics. Surveys have shown that only 15% of unsatisfied customers make formal complaints. According to the supervisor of the WHU study, Professor Christian Homburg, “Any organisation which limits itself to complaint statistics is only concentrating on the tip of the iceberg.”
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• What recommendations can we draw from the survey results for assessing customer satisfaction that can be fed back as good practice by the managers responsible for measuring customer satisfaction via internal management training sessions?
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• 1. Assess customer satisfaction on a permanent basis and systematically. This is the only way of being able to draw useful comparisons. It is also the only way to make mistakes visible.
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• 2. Do not make the common mistake of believing that internal surveys and complaint statistics are sufficient indicators of customer satisfaction. Remember, only the few make complaints.
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• 3. Rather than making the wrong decisions as a result of incorrect internal surveys use external know-how.
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• 4. Remember the complex decision-making structures in your customers’ organisations. Your analyses should therefore not concentrate only on one person, otherwise you will miss vital feedback.
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• 5. Do not be put off by possible problems. Many issues are over-rated and the uses that you can gain from customer satisfaction analyses are considerably greater than any obstacles.
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• 6. Last, but not least: do not sweep the results of your customer satisfaction analysis under the carpet. Use the information that you gain and plan the requisite measures in your organisation to increase customer satisfaction. Make sure you include the results in your management training sessions to help all your managers understand not only the issues but also what they need to do in their departments to improve the organisations customer satisfaction results.

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