Customer Satisfaction StrategiesWhat is customer satisfaction?We are in the midst of a revolution in business. Some call it a customer revolution, others a quality revolution, others a service revolution. Organizations are attempting to obtain increased customer satisfaction by focusing on the quality of their products and the service provided.
This movement toward quality has produced significant benefits but just like other business fads, joining and adopting the religion does not insure that the real objective of producing customer satisfaction will be obtained. Customer satisfaction is a key ingredient to the success of any business. It is the most important factor that creates repeated customers. Some people know it but do not realize its importance. If a customer of yours is satisfied with one of your products or services, chances are this customer will purchase more of your products or services, which will increase your revenue.
Therefore, in order to have your new or existing customers buy more from you, you will have to follow techniques that work. Customer satisfaction takes a very important place in Marketing. As much as you think that your marketing strategies should help you generate sales, think about how the same marketing strategies could help you achieve Customer satisfaction. There are a lot of elements involved with Customer satisfaction.
Know the problems of your customers and what they are looking for, then offer them the right products and outline the benefits to them. Most of the time, customers do not care about your product or its features. They care about what your product does for them. Therefore, do not just list the features of what you offer, but rather add the benefits of your products or anything you offer to your targeted audience (your customers or visitors).
This is a very effective element for Customer satisfaction. The more profitable firms are those that are able to maintain their most valued customers throughout time. To satisfy a customer means to make him faithful and customer satisfaction becomes the index that measures the ability of the firm to produce income for the future. The virtuous circle of customer satisfaction :What is quality?We commonly view quality as a physical property of our product and therefore see our task as producing a product that meets these physical characteristics. However, customers do not buy products just based on their assessment of quality. They buy a whole set of expectations that they have formulated out of their unique concerns.
These interpretations of the promises they listen you make or your product delivers are the “product” they are buying. Their expectations may contain some expected product characteristics or standards but these will vary from customer to customer. They may or may not be similar to standards you have designed into your product or service. They can be lower or higher. The traditional understanding of quality assumes that if we determine and adopt a set of standards or measurements for our product or service and meet these standards, our customers should be satisfied. However, meeting our “quality” standards does not necessarily insure that our customer will declare they are satisfied or even agree that we produce a “quality” product.
We claim that quality is not a physical property. We say it lives in our conversations as an assessment or opinion. It varies depending upon who is speaking. The assessment of quality is dependent on some set of assumed standards. These standards are typically developed based upon some opinion of “this is what the customer wants.
” Unfortunately, all customers are not the same and most do not share the same concerns or standards of what will satisfy those concerns. What is service?Good service is often viewed as being nice to the customer. This takes the form of being accommodating, never saying no, promising anything they ask for and always being courteous. Although we are not suggesting that it is ever appropriate to be rude or discourteous, we do claim that in our attempts to please we often create customer expectations that exceed our competency or capacity to deliver. Attempts to please can also violate those standards put in place to minimize our risk or produce a profit.
When customers have different expectations than what we produce (or can produce), we are not providing good service, we are setting the stage for dissatisfaction. In a similar manner, when we provide a product or service at a loss, we produce dissatisfaction for our stakeholders and ultimately can not sustain our viability. We say that service is an assessment our customer makes in the following areas:The actions we take or do not take. The conversations we have or do not have. The promises and offers we make or do not make.
The manner in which we craft their expectations and manage these expectations. The way we listen to their concerns and tailor our actions to take care of these concerns. What is satisfaction?The traditional focus on quality and service does not produce a valid interpretation of satisfaction, on how it is generated and how we can produce it. Our common understanding assumes that if we provide enough quality or enough service, satisfaction will result. However, we have evidence to support that quality and service alone can not produce recurrent satisfaction. Satisfaction is a distinct and separate issue.
We claim that it is the customer’s entire experience with us that determines his or her declaration of satisfaction. We say that this experience is not objective at all but totally subjective. It is the customer’s call. That call is based upon the customer’s perception of the experience. This perception is his/her interpretation of the value received played back against his expectations.
We say that satisfaction is a linguistic phenomenon, a spoken or written declaration made by a customer in conversations with us or others. It is a declaration that we have given them authority to make. This declaration does not require any objective evidence. It can be a declaration made with no reason. Our interactions with the customer, the promises made to the customer in these conversations, the customer’s expectations generated in these conversations, and the actions we take that are consistent with those expectations combine to produce a declaration of satisfaction when we ask.
