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Customer Satisfaction Measurement

In order to determine customer satisfaction and evaluate the customer's perception of service and products received, survey questions are developed from the customer's perspective by using the critical incident approach. The strength of this approach relies on the customer and is derived from the reliance on customer input throughout the survey instrument development and measuring process. A weakness of this approach is the time required to obtain customer input throughout the entire process.

The primary reason to use customer satisfaction survey tools is to identify the factors driving overall customer satisfaction. With increased competition, companies must have better knowledge of customers' perceptions and attitudes about products and services the organization offers. To gain a competitive advantage, a business must recognize decision opportunities to make better decisions based on what the customer wants.

How do managers determine what is important when engaged in the task of allocating resources? Do they arbitrarily develop a large list and attempt to improve all the needs identified? How do they determine the customer requirements? How do they know when the process is improved? Without proper measurement, managers would not know the effectiveness of these efforts. Customer Satisfaction measurement provides a "voice of the customer" checkpoint for verifying management effectiveness.

In the following example, Knowledge and Accuracy are the drivers of overall satisfaction in this process. From the customer's perception, allocating additional resources to Personalized Service will not improve overall satisfaction, while spending additional money on improving Accuracy and Knowledge will. Because Personalized Service has a low correlation value to overall satisfaction, less money could be spent on this attribute without adversely effecting overall satisfaction.

Figure 1:Radar Chart

Management can reduce costs by correctly allocating resources (from the customer perspective of importance) and can increase revenues by improving customer satisfaction. Additionally, because each dimension is comprised of questions that have been defined by the customer, not only does management categorically know what is important, but also specifically. For example, Accuracy questions may have included "my order is correctly processed" or "the checkout person gives me the correct total for my purchases". A specific activity directly correlated to customer overall satisfaction can be targeted with the highest probability of improving overall satisfaction. The proper use of customer satisfaction information would lower costs, increase revenues, and verify improvements. We can help you and your company to determine an accurate measurement of customer satisfaction. Contact Alexandria to begin this process today.

Alexandria Marketing Research Group, Inc. 212 1/2 W. 5th St., Joplin, MO 64801, Phone: 888.420.8884
Revision Date June 5, 2008