Introduction
With great difficulty you will find an organization where it is believed that customer satisfaction is secondary; on the contrary, almost all of them will say that this is precisely the mission of the company and its reason for being. However, you will find few that measure it consistently and permanently.
What would you think of a company that does not keep its accounts consistently and permanently?
The accounting is maintained even if it does not produce results (neither good nor bad), because it reflects the state of the company. It is a measurement tool that guides decisions.
Measuring customer satisfaction is also a tool that guides decisions, but despite the fact that customer satisfaction is often the raison d'être of many companies, it is common that it is not measured.
The explanation for this behavior lies in the thinking of decision makers, as if the importance of this data depended more on the particular opinion of an individual than on the true philosophy of the organization.
Those who measure customer satisfaction, it is because they are committed to them, that is the only difference. Who has this commitment, seeks in the minimum statistical changes of the evaluations, the reason, the cause, the explanation to the opinions of the clients. These people extract from the information valuable opportunities that allow them to lead the company towards differentiation and allocate resources to observe the details. They modernize their evaluation methods, foster healthy internal competition, and define target positions against the market.
Make customer satisfaction profitable
Measuring customer satisfaction is profitable as long as it is accompanied by actions that lead to improvement and innovation. If you are not willing to invest (time and / or effort and / or money) as a result of the results, the measurement of customer satisfaction is inconsequential. To make customer satisfaction profitable, the "why" must be clearly established. It is common to hear that the goal is to create loyalty, promote repeat sales and increase the recommendation rate. But to obtain these results, it is necessary to start from the strategy that the company has to compete and position itself.
Carwford and Mathews, in their book The Myth of Excellence, recognize five dimensions in which companies compete: price, product, accessibility, service and experience. They establish that on the scale from 1 to 5, where 1 means the worst in the market and 5 means the best, these 5 dimensions must be managed so that the company has a strong and profitable positioning.
The optimal strategy they suggest consists of excelling in one of the 5 dimensions (having a "5"), reinforcing with another (having a "4"), and not getting below the average in the other three (having three "3s"). Having more than a 5 or more than a 4 may reflect an excess of expenditure or effort in any of the dimensions, while obtaining at least a "2" or "1" leaves the company in a poor position with its customers, since that disappoints them and does not meet expectations in at least one of the dimensions.
Taking into account the above reasoning, it is essential for the company to measure and know:
a) That in the strategic dimension of leadership you have chosen, it is indeed the best in the market.
b) That in the strategic dimension of reinforcement that you have chosen, it is effectively above the market average.
c) That in the other three non-strategic dimensions, it offers at least the equivalent of the market average.
When customer satisfaction is measured, this scheme must be evident in the results, so that the decisions that arise generate a profitable project.
Important considerations when measuring customer satisfaction
"Customer satisfaction is the perceptual measure of what the company does."
The premise that "reality is what is perceived" is often poorly appreciated by the affected areas. Therefore, measuring satisfaction with internal resources is a risk that must be controlled so as not to live deceived. It is common that customer opinions do not match internal indicators, and many do not like that.
When measuring satisfaction, one must be aware that achieving internal goals does not necessarily imply that the client perceives them. The actions that arise when measuring customer satisfaction often require relying on a communication plan of what the company is doing.
"The evaluation of the performance of the company in the five dimensions is relative to the competition."
As the measure of customer satisfaction is a perceptual result, it is valid to ask our own customers to evaluate our competitors, it is also valid to obtain comparative evaluations "against the market".
Many companies are short-sighted in their measurements by neglecting their competitors, they have the gall to say that the performance of others does not care as long as their internal indicators tell them that they are advancing against themselves. Threats cannot be seen if you don't look up.
Others commit the sin of vanity, because they consider themselves the greatest or the best, no one can be a judge in this regard except the client himself.
"The battle is in the ideas."
Innovation is a sign of our time, the speed with which things change, are reinvented, copied and changed again is impressive. Inventing a way to exceed customer expectations is a challenge that never ends, it is the essence of continuous improvement.
Stopping these innovations is what leads products and services towards the “commodity” or towards “obsolescence” where the price war finds fertile ground.
Measuring customer satisfaction usually leads to a dramatic improvement between the first year and the third, the "no recommendation" rates that are between 10% and 20% will be reduced to no more than 3%. This effect is due to the fact that at that time it is relatively easy to contribute new ideas. Then there is a fall-reaction-rebound-fall effect that repeats almost harmonically with variations of 2 to 3 percentage points. This is the symptom that the system has reached its maturity and there is a need for much more effort to create new offers, new plans that shake up the market and make you see the difference between organizations.
When stabilization occurs, a shift in focus in how you approach the customer usually pays off. In such a competitive world, it is essential to question rigorously to discover areas of opportunity.
Studies that have been carried out in different industries show us that the same client answers with a different degree of satisfaction depending on the way of questioning it. For example, the "satisfaction index" is built with the question that evaluates how satisfied the customer is, as well as the "recommendation index" is the indicator of how much the product or service is recommended.
There are other more demanding questions, such as:
Would you say that the service was worse, the same or better than expected? (index of exceeding expectations)
Do you consider this product to be worse, the same or better than other options on the market?
(Index of best option in the market)
How do you rate the staff's effort to provide outstanding service? (Index of effort to provide the best service).
If the satisfaction or recommendation indexes reach 80% of the "top box", then the index of exceeding expectations reaches 60%, the index of "best option in the market" is located at 40% and the index of " effort to provide the best service ”stands at 20%. In other words, when the satisfaction or recommendation is 80% "totally yes", the rate of perception of the effort to conquer the customer barely reaches 20% of "totally perceived".
This tells us about two different scenarios, in 80% there is little to do, while in 20% there is a long way to go, but both answers are given by the same client. Many would be proud of 80% and hardly anyone of 20%.
Understanding two such distant opinions when living the same experience is a reason to deepen the description of the buyer and the benefits he pursues, once the message is deciphered, there are the elements to implement the changes and return to "profitable" the measurement.
Conclusions
The profitability of a satisfaction study lies in the ability to use its results to direct them to a position in the dimensions where you want to stand out.
This profitability depends on the degree of improvement that is achieved, which in turn forces us to deepen and reflect on aspects such as:
- What things is the client looking for that we do not give them? What are the efforts we make and yet they are not perceived? What is the difference between us and the competition? Where is the market eager for a substantial improvement? What attributes have they become obligations under the customer's criteria? What is the strategy that at the minimum cost and time impacts the customer the most forcefully? What are the details that are needed to win the market's preference?
The satisfaction study should answer these questions and encourage the company to seek innovation that keeps the difference alive against the market.
Bibliography
Crawford, Fred and Mathews, Ryan, The Myth of Excellence. Spain: Editorial Urano.
Brookes, Richard, Customer Satisfaction Research. Amsterdam: ESOMAR.
