In recent months, and mainly due to the increasing importance that has been given to the evaluation of customer satisfaction in the 2000 revision of the ISO 9000 standard and models of Excellence (EFQM, Malcolm Baldrige, Deming Prize, etc..), the number of organizations that do customer satisfaction evaluations has emerged.
It is clear that it is very important to know customer satisfaction since there is a direct relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty, and therefore, with the organization's income.
Obviously, if customers are more satisfied, they will be more loyal and therefore give us higher income and for a longer period of time.
But, in our professional work we find more and more often that customer satisfaction analyzes systematically comment on three main types of errors:
1.- Do not integrate the analysis of customer satisfaction within a customer relationship management strategy.
2.- Failure to correctly develop customer satisfaction analyzes for one or more of the following reasons:
2.1.- Not having identified exactly that the organization has different types of clients and whose satisfaction is based on different parameters.
2.2.- Lack of methodology for the analysis of customer satisfaction
2.3.- Lack of experience and knowledge in the development of the surveys, focus and objectives of the analysis.
2.4.- Lack of knowledge about statistical aspects in order to correctly draw conclusions.
2.5.- Incorrect execution of the content of the questionnaires
2.6.- Resources for the collection of information are not optimized
2.7.- Incorrect data analysis methodology.
2.8.- Lack of an adequate technological platform that correctly supports the collection and analysis of information.
3.- Other sources of information about customers are not considered, such as: contacts with them in the daily activity of the company, complaints, information about the competition, etc.
To make an analysis of the quality of the procedure that has been used so far, the following questions can be asked:
- What are the objectives to be achieved by evaluating customer satisfaction? How does this evaluation relate to other actions related to the customer? What procedure has been used to define the key parameters that define the quality of the product / service ? Has information been available from customers to define key parameters? Are all key parameters defining customer satisfaction really covered in the questionnaire? Are the questions in the questionnaire clear and concise enough? Has a statistical analysis been carried out to define the minimum number of surveys (sample size) necessary? Has a statistical analysis been developed to validate the reliability, that is,the validity of the information collected? Have statistical analyzes been used to validate the questionnaires before their mass use? Are other sources of information being used in addition to the questionnaires to assess customer satisfaction? Are analyzes carried out throughout the time to analyze the evolution of customer satisfaction?
For this reason, an outline of the methodology to follow to correctly carry out the analysis would be:
- Integrate customer satisfaction analysis into a customer relationship management strategy Define exactly what the objectives of the analysis are within the customer relationship management strategy Define the key parameters that define product / service quality through interviews with clients as well as with the help of internal and external experts. Integrate other sources of information into the analysis Define the sampling method and sample size Design of the questionnaires
5.1.- Define the elements of the questionnaire
5.2.- Check the wording of the elements
5.3.- Selection of the response format
5.4.- Do a test with a group of clients (in case of surveys with a large number of clients) to validate the questionnaire.
- Execute the questionnaires through personal interviews, electronic means, telephone, fax, etc. Make a statistical treatment of the collected information Extraction of conclusions Follow-up of the solution used
As can be seen in this article, it is not easy to correctly develop the evaluation of customer satisfaction, although these simple recommendations and the help of experts in this area can help the evaluation to be carried out correctly and the expected results to be obtained.
If you do not have methodology, experience and knowledge in this area, you will have a client evaluation that instead of helping us to improve, will make our management worse due to the inaccuracy of the information for correct decision-making.
