Customer satisfaction and marketing success

by Prasanna Perera, Marketing and Management, Consultant, Chartered Marketer, CIM (UK)

Customer satisfaction. This topic has been the favourite of many authors, simply because of the impact that it creates towards marketing success.

Customer satisfaction is the ability that an organisation possesses, to meet the needs of their customers. (On a regular basis). Through customer satisfaction, an organisation hopes to achieve a range of objectives namely, higher sales revenue, growth in the customer base, retention of existing customers etc. Therefore, customer satisfaction is important today, as it was in the past.

Most methods of boosting customer satisfaction, borders on common sense. However, it is amassing to note the many organisations that fail to do simple things, in a simple manner. Take for example, answering the telephone.

Telephones are means to facilitate effective communication. How many organisations are doing this. They are instead, not managing the telephone system and thereby, creating dissatisfaction amongst customers. Let us briefly recap a few methods of boosting customer satisfaction. Make it easy for customers to purchase your product and pay for it.

Supermarkets would do well to improve the availability of products and also make it convenient for customers to pay. (Remember the customer is willing to pay, but wants to do so easily). Why don't organisations want to collect the payments that the customers are most willing to make? Another aspect that can boost customer satisfaction is to deliver products and services, on time. Nothing frustrates a customer more than having to wait indefinitely to receive a product that has been paid for.

Once a promise is made on delivery dates, it must simply be met. No excuses are called into play. Listening to customers are very important. This helps to satisfy customers, since an organization knows precisely what customers require. Provide customers avenues to complain, to make suggestions and feedback on the products and services offered. Feedback is vital in the customer satisfaction process.

When making promises to customers, the golden rule is to under promise and over deliver. This will lead to customer satisfaction. The reverse is quite a disaster i.e., over promising and under delivering! Customer satisfaction is not only applicable to external customers. What about internal customers or employees? Employees too require job satisfaction, when working, with a particular organisation.

The organisation's responsibility is to provide employees avenues to enhance job satisfaction. It is only satisfied employees, that will contribute towards organizational growth and prosperity.

Is customer satisfaction enough?

Customer satisfaction means that you are doing O.K. However, in today's competitive environment, all organisations have the ability to satisfy their customers equally well.

As such, organisations have to strive to exceed customer expectations i.e., customer delight. Take for example a five star hotel. All five star hotels possess features and facilities that are capable of customer satisfaction. However, certain five star hotel chains have a competitive edge over their rivals.

This is because they are able to differentiate themselves in a meaningful manner with their customers, leading to customer delight. For example, superior reservation systems, excellent room service and an excellent ambience.

The essence of customer delight, is exceeding customer requirements on a continuous basis. It is fair to assume that customer delight will lead to greater customer loyalty and retention. As such, customer delight is a higher playing field than customer satisfaction. In the process of delighting customers, it is important to recognize that higher costs may have to be incurred.

Therefore a careful balance should be achieved between customer delight and the costs that have to be incurred in this process. Please remember that it is not customer delight at any cost!

There are many techniques available to marketers. Customer satisfaction surveys could be conducted both on a formal and informal basis. The variable tested should be important to customers and must be consistent, so that patterns/trends could be identified over time.

Focus group research is a popular technique to measure customer satisfaction. Many service organisations such as airlines, hotels and supermarkets adopt this technique quite often. Valuable qualitative information can be acquired, in order to facilitate future marketing strategy development.

Another method is to analyse the number and nature of complaints received. If the absolute number decreases, when compared with the nature of complaints, this could mean to reflect higher levels of customer satisfaction.

Comparative studies can be carried out, to assess the levels of customer satisfaction, against main competitors. It is important to include both competitor and own organisational customers, in such a study.

Whilst there are many methods that can be adopted, consistency in measurement and methods is vital. You cannot simply improve customer satisfaction levels, if what to improve is not known.