A few years ago, I remember that a self-service store started asking him at the checkout: 'He found everything he was looking for.' At first the customer comments were quite nice, as they felt that the company would finally seek their satisfaction. It was a big step, no doubt, in the pursuit of customer loyalty.
However, as the months went by, the comments changed because customers noticed that the information requested did not generate any change or improvement in the assortment of products that they indicated they needed. For this reason, after a while the enthusiasm of the client to express her opinion was dissipating, and the objective of her satisfaction, lost sight of the client again.
Honestly, I thought that over the years this would change little by little, although sadly we realize that this is not the case yet.
Today, after several years, it has become fashionable to ask customers for their opinion on the service they receive in order to know their degree of satisfaction: telephone, personal surveys, questionnaires to fill out, mystery shoppers, mailboxes for complaints and suggestions, etc.. Unfortunately, the effort of many organizations has remained there, in measuring the customer satisfaction index, but not crystallizing it in their true satisfaction, so customer loyalty is still not completely achieved.
The measurement of customer satisfaction is an instrument to reach it, not an end, so it is a gross mistake to imagine that generating the measurement activities captivates the customer.
For example: do you think that you could improve your health with just a medical exam (measurement of your health), without going to a doctor, without taking medicines, without following a diet, etc?
It is exactly the same with the customer, service levels are not improved just by measuring them.
In our opinion, the customer satisfaction equation is made up of 2 variables, the measurement of the current state (and its causes) as well as the generation of activities to correct the errors detected. That is why the equation in our country is still incomplete, because the second variable continues to be ignored by many organizations or executives.
Reasons for not generating changes in organizations.
1. Measure by requirement or fashion.
The first impediment we find in many organizations from not completing the customer satisfaction equation is that they perform measurement activities just to meet a requirement, such as the new ISO 9000-2000 standard, or are requested by the parent company (in another country), or because all my competitors do it. But not because I want to change or improve it.
During these last years of research, of the companies that do carry out a measurement, our sample reflects that 56% of the companies are in this classification.
Of course, if they only do it to fulfill a requirement, there will be no actions to satisfy the customer.
I assure you that a company truly committed to its clients would not allow clients to complain about the same thing for 4 consecutive years. Do you think so ??
2. They ignore negative comments.
Secondly, we find cases in which businessmen do want customer satisfaction, but in an immediate way, they reject negative customer comments because they consider them unfounded.
12% of our sample yielded these results. The main reason we found for this classification is that the entrepreneur or executive fails to understand what has caused the client's dissatisfaction, either because the client was not specific enough in giving his opinion, or because they consider knowing more about the business. that the client himself and they assure are not right.
I remember once that a major financial institution in the country carried out a customer satisfaction survey in its consumer credit area, and the perception of most customers was that the credit charged very high interest (two thirds of surveyed customers were of the same opinion). The executives quickly disqualified the client's evaluation, because they claim to have the lowest rate on the market, and they ignored it for a few months.
When we managed to find the client's reason for such an evaluation (by surveying them again) it was discovered that - from their point of view - the interests were high; since the vast majority of surveyed customers were not notified that they would be charged a commission for credit authorization. The clients compared only what they had paid for the loan and for them, the interest was very high.
The executives in the first instance devalued that evaluation, because the interest rate they charge is the lowest, but the client evaluated something else.
Remember that the client generates an evaluation from their particular perspective and although they may not have all the elements for a correct judgment, their judgment indicates their satisfaction or dissatisfaction, and then it is useful to find ways to improve their perception in the future.
3. They can't find what to improve or change.
Of course it would be unfair to generalize that all companies do not seek changes in their companies; Our sample shows that 32% of the organizations investigated did show that interest.
However, we find that sometimes even if the intention is, the changes are not achieved, because we do not have the necessary information to know what we should change and what we should maintain.
When we began to advise entrepreneurs who wanted to increase customer satisfaction, and provided us with their measurement reports, we observed that there was no possibility of taking advantage of them, because they contained extremely ambiguous or too broad information, so we understood that entrepreneurs find two different problems:
A) Do not make any changes. - Surveys do not allow obtaining information on what change to make, so they prefer not to carry out any activity for fear that it will not be successful.
Example:
The service we provided was:
Excellent _____ Good _________ Regular ________ Bad____
In our experience, your opinion of the service only reflects your feelings, but does not allow me to have more information to correct.
If the client tells me that it is excellent, what is it ???, to continue doing it.
If the client tells me that it is bad, what is it ????, to improve it.
Most satisfaction surveys have these types of questions, which are very useful to know the customer's opinion, but not to take action. Therefore, in our experience, not many actions are carried out.
B) Make wrong changes.- On numerous occasions we found cases of businessmen or executives who made wrong changes because, lacking specific information in their measurements, they made conjectures about the supposed cause of dissatisfaction.
In a restaurant the customer can say that the service was bad, because it was slow, because his dish was poorly cooked, I did not like the garnish, the quantity was not enough, etc.
So if you want to do something, you are probably wrong because you will try to imagine the reason for such comments, but in reality you don't know it, and you can do the opposite of what the customer was referring to.
It is perhaps the most frequent reason we find why the actions taken do not achieve the goal of customer satisfaction. It is very periodic that the businessman or executive who understands the client's feelings, not knowing what it is based on, interprets it from their point of view and therefore may be wrong when initiating any action.
It is very important to emphasize that in these cases the iron is not conscious on the part of the businessman or executive, because it has the interest to improve the situation, but it lacks the information to do it effectively.
conclusion
If you want to improve customer satisfaction, you must not only ask the customers themselves for their opinion, but you must take into account the information obtained to take action.
Without actions, measurement has no reason to exist, nor does it increase customer satisfaction. What's more, our experiences have allowed us to observe that in the long run it decreases it, because a client surveyed expects changes in the future, if there are not any, their opinion of the service decreases, even if the service provided is still the same. '
