Customer satisfaction how and what: What is customer satisfaction?

But what does that really mean? The moment you want to meet your customers' expectations, you must first have visibility into those expectations. measure and improve customer satisfaction?

Understanding what factors determine customer satisfaction

Wanting to drive satisfaction assumes that there is a clear picture in advance of the factors that determine customer satisfaction. That is where it often goes wrong. Inside-out reasoning is used to determine which factors are likely to be important and that is incorporated into a questionnaire. If, as an organization, you really want to have insight into the extent to which certain factors are important in customer satisfaction, you will have to ask customers. In doing so, it is wise to apply some degree of segmentation, because different factors may be important to one customer group than to another. You then use these factors to test how satisfied you customers are. This process moves you from an inside-out to an outside-in approach. So from now on, you measure customer satisfaction using the factors that actually matter to you customer. After determining the right variables it is a matter of setting up a continuous cycle of measurement and improvement.

The importance of customer satisfaction

Long ago, Treacy and Wiesema formulated value strategies: product leadership, operational excellence and customer intimacy. These are still relevant today. They are strategies that allow you to stand out from the competition because you are doing better than your competitor in certain areas. Also, always check that you customer actually recognizes your differentiation. If the customer does not recognize your distinctiveness, then this is a missed opportunity. Again, it is wise to apply outside-in reasoning: ask your customer. Regardless of which value strategy you choose, you will want to know whether your customer is satisfied with the way you implement that strategy. This is precisely why you should make customer satisfaction central to shaping your strategy at the tactical and operational levels.

Improve customer satisfaction

What is customer satisfaction improvement? What does it yield? That depends a lot on what you measure and how you measure it. If you want to measure what really matters to your customer and are also willing to make changes based on the results, only then is measurement valuable. Read more about measuring customer satisfaction in our next blog.

So what is customer satisfaction? And why is it important?

Customer satisfaction is a major determinant of staying a customer or not. Dissatisfied customers are more likely to walk away and to advertise negatively. So it is important to have visibility into the factors that determine satisfaction and how those factors are scored.