01608 644144
Customer Satisfaction Measurement
Customer satisfaction, sales training experts tell us, not only relates to individual products and services but to everything that your customers associate with you and your company. The crucial thing is how highly your customers rate you, not how good you actually are. Your customers judgment may differ greatly from your own assessment of yourself and this being so a good deal of scope for improvement presents itself. The prerequisite, however, is that you know where and on what scale you have to make any improvements. Relying on in-house analysis of complaints or of service and maintenance reports is not enough. Many customers do not make a complaint but simply switch to your competition without saying a word. Nor can an internal analysis show you how your customers judge you in comparison with your competitors. For a complete picture of customer satisfaction you may need to consult an independent and experienced market research institute.
The study on customer satisfaction presented below was carried out for a large, and internationally active, PC manufacturer.
Anyone who really wants to measure their customers’ satisfaction must first of all define the relevant target customer groups precisely. In the market for computer products this is an extremely complex undertaking because they are sold to dealers, to purchasing departments, to decision-makers and to direct to users. What is more each one of these groups is highly heterogeneous.
Having defined the target group you next need to decide what should be measured. Here you should not try to find out how individual aspects of performance are generally judged, as happens in the usual customer satisfaction studies, but how these factors are rated particularly by those customers who attach the most importance to the given aspects.
Similarly, don’t just collect data on how customers rate the company’s actual performance, but also establish what performances are most important to them - regardless of whether these factors are actually offered by your company.
Also, do not only consider how one’s own customers judge one’s own performance, but also how one’s own customers rate the performance of one’s main competitor.
Finally, do not just record what the customers say is of obvious importance for their buying decisions (usually related to price or reliability), but also identify how crucial the less tangible factors, such as the reputation of the brand, the company’s image, confidence etc. are for them.
Getting answers to these questions allows you to filter out the most important factors related to customer satisfaction for your company
In the study mentioned above, a total of 400 25–minute telephone based interviews were carried out. A structured questionnaire was used for the interviews, relating to the following subject areas:
1. General information about the company of the customer being interviewed. In this part of the interview it was established how many computers were installed and how they were used.
2. Areas of current customer satisfaction. A check list was drawn up of 30 material and non-material factors ranging from product performances (reliability, application, price/performance ratio) through to sales support (dealer’s specialist knowledge, quality, sales training provided) and service given (speed, readiness to deliver) to the brand image. The people being interviewed stated how important they thought each individual characteristic was.
3. Areas of customer satisfaction. A list was drawn up of 30 material and non-material factors reaching from product performances (reliability, application, price/performance ratio) through sales support (dealer’s specialist knowledge, quality) and service (speed, readiness to deliver) to brand image. The customers stated how important they thought each individual characteristic was.
The characteristics the company choose to investigate were sifted out from a multiplicity of criteria. They were derived from the experience of the industry and from the findings of previous external group discussions, in depth interviews and individual explorations.
4. Assessment of your own brand and of competing brands. Every customer interviewed assessed the manufacturer’s brand and that of two competitors, both generally and as regards each of the 30 characteristics mentioned above. In addition, the customers buying intentions were ascertained.
5. Quality of performance and customer expectations. In response to a series of open questions, the customer compared the manufacturer’s performances with their own expectations. At the same time they were also asked to give examples of how they had been either disappointed or pleasantly surprised.
In conclusion: By analyzing the individual results it was possible to show the different degrees of actual customer satisfaction of the various target groups. These data enabled the computer manufacturer to gear its future measures more specifically to the requirements of the various target groups. These measures were then rolled out and supported by a programme of sales training for the sales force.
