Measuring Customer Satisfaction

MEASURING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

KELLER GRADUATE SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

BSOP – 588 – MANAGEING QUALITY

BY: KACHENA BOYD

When I think of the word customer, generally what comes to mind is a person or organization that buys goods or services from a store or a business. As it relates to quality management, an organizations image is very important to the customers. In any business, providing quality services delivers benefits to the business. The customers’ interaction with the organization and how this interaction is measured are very crucial. Now days’, just making a good product or service available is not enough. Customer satisfaction will be affected by how effectively, courteously, and promptly customers are served.

On several occasions, I’ve witnessed customers building relationships with personnel in the organization who are knowledgeable, professional in appearance, and positive. These kinds of relationships promote loyalty. However, let’s keep in mind that even satisfied customers are likely to defect. Satisfaction without loyalty can lead to habituation and boredom. The customer is keen to experience something new and therefore changes to another business. To retain customers, organizations need to seek their input rather than waiting for and reacting to feedback provided after a problem has occurred.

One good practice that I found interesting in customer satisfaction is the Kano Model. The Kano Model is a theory of product development and customer satisfaction developed in the 1980’s by Professor Noriaki Kano, which classifies customer preferences into categories such as Dissatisfiers, Satisfiers, and Delighters/Exciters. The main objective of the Kano model is to help teams understand, classify and combine the categories of requirements into the products and services the organization is developing. I think this practice becomes particularly important when trying to rank the customers wants and desires in a logical fashion.

Another practice...