Are your customers truly satisfied? Do they come back time and time again singing your praises and referring new business to you?

Is there an area of your organisation that you could improve that you are currently unable to see?

If so, this could indicate that there is a misalignment between the internal thinking within your organisation i.e. the perception of satisfactory service delivery and external thinking held by the perceptions of the customer once they have transacted and experience working with your organisation…

So why are satisfied customers so important?

It is fairly known within the customer service arena that a satisfied customer is a happy customer… and we all know that if our customers are happy, then they will be more likely to purchase more from us, tell their friends about what a great service they’ve had and refer new business to us.  Having a strong customer base in this way is integral for any organisations long term survival and sustainability as it ensures that the organisation will live on through the generations and explore new markets.

However, reaching this fine balance between the customer and organisation can be easier said than done as with any market, the customers that you are addressed will be made up from a wide variety of customer groups and their needs regarding your product/service will vary depending on how they aim to put it to use.

I think Theodore Levitt summed it up best when he said that

“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!”

But if you had more than one product you were selling, say a portfolio, each targeted at different segments of the market, then it immediately becomes apparent that shaping your organisations resources to be more customer centric can be much more of challenge.

To develop this further, your organisation may already be delivering a quality service to the majority of your customer base but say a minority of customers had an issue with, the voice of these customer could shed light on how best to innovate your products/services and also, re-align your customer satisfaction processes to increase satisfaction across the board.

So what are the different types of customer feedback?

In a general sense, there are two types of customer feedback your organisation can use in it’s customer satisfaction programmes… they are:

Positive Customer Feedback:

• Helps define best practices in service delivery and  quality control
• Delivers the Voice of the Customer into the Organisation
• Allows management teams to apply the right resources in the right areas of the business

Negative Customer Feedback:

• Helps define change management programmes
• Identifies gaps between customer expectations and service delivery
• Identifies inefficient or in-appropriate business processes

Reshaping Organisational Thinking

In the fast paced business world we work in today, there can be tendency to focus on short term goals and measurement metrics that help deliver a ROI in an as short a time as possible, but to make a sustainable business that transcends across generations and delivers a long term ROI, your organisation will ultimately need to invest into areas of the organisation that improve the customer experience across the board to ensure that your organisation foresees changes in customer buying preferences and trends and pip you competitors to the post before they can take the opportunity to meet your customer expectations.

So how should an organisation view a customer satisfaction programme?

Scholars and academics have maintained the fact that a highly satisfied customers can contribute more to an organisations revenue generation programme as they are more likely to talk about your organisation in a positive light, refer more business to you, purchase more goods and services as well as stay with your organisation as it evolves over time.  It is these advocates of your service that are the most important customer groups to your organisation as it shows that the way your organisation communicates and delivers its products or service are closely aligned to the needs and buying preferences of your customers.

With top management teams stressing about meeting short term objectives and meeting targets/quotas means that all too often, investing into a customer satisfaction programme gets left on the back burner… however, tipping this perception on it’s head shows us that investing into a customer experience/satisfaction programme should not be accounted as organisational cost, but more as a long term investment that will return positively to your bottom line i.e. an ROI

But sometimes this isn’t the case…

Sometimes, organisations can see growth in revenue whilst there is a drop in customer satisfaction.  But why does this occur?

One of the reasons I have looked into around this phenomena is that although an organisation may be experiencing growth in revenue, this also attracts many more customer groups who also choose to buy from you.

Moreover, as the characteristics of these new customer groups may be beneficial for an organisations growth, or even survival, the leadership functions within these organisations need to recognise these new customer groups also attract a new customer expectations that an organisation needs to address.

Quite often, this can be the trigger point for where gaps between service delivery, customer support and the customers expectations occur so wouldn’t it be nice if you could nip these in the bud before gaps widen?

However, once the Voice of the Customer starts filtering through an organisations decision making processes and a reconfiguration and restructuring programmes are deployed in order to manage these new customer expectations, organisations can then focus on optimising their business processes around raising the quality of customer satisfaction to in effect, make longer terms savings in service delivery and retain customers for longer thus increasing the value of the customer for the organisation.

Long Term Organisational Benefits

• Increased word of mouth
• Satisfied customers retained for longer
• Referral sales
• Increased cross sell opportunities.
• Increased loyalty
• Increased retention

No matter what market you operate in, you could be a marketing manager, a clinician, an , a student or an employee of any organisation.  Promoting positive customer satisfaction programmes throughout your enterprise can bring the voice of the group into your planning process and grow your organisation with your customers instead of without them.