Measuring customer satisfaction implies to understand its criteria, the dissatisfaction and satisfaction relationship and the interactions with quality.
This article brings brief answers to the question: What is customer satisfaction?
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Understanding the satisfaction training process
Customers do not regard a product as a whole, but as the whole potential benefit that it brings compared to the competing products. The customer buys satisfaction while trying to maximize it.
Product characteristics are represented by attributes (example: price, lifespan, material…).
By comparing the product attributes with those of the competition, it will be possible to determine the customer satisfaction. We talk about a multi-attribute model. In this model, the contribution of each attribute to the total satisfaction is linear; i.e. the satisfaction of an attribute increases the weight of global satisfaction.
Understanding satisfaction criteria: subjectivity, relativity and scalability
A customer will assess a product or a service by taking into account all criteria. The three principal criteria are subjectivity, relativity and scalability.
Satisfaction is subjective. It does not depend on objective reality but on the perception of a product or a service. A company product can be the most functional on the market, but if some customers do not manage to use all the functionalities, they will say this product is not functional.
Satisfaction is relative. It depends on expectations that customers have with respect to a product or a service. If it does not meet expectations, a company which proposes the best product on the market will not be able to generate satisfaction. On the contrary, a product which meets expectations will generate satisfaction even if it is not the best. The greater the expectations are, the greater the disappointment.
Certain customers will be satisfied if they consider that the ratio performance/cost is equitable with respect to that of the supplier and that is independently of the perceived quality. This is what is called the equity theory.
Satisfaction is scalable. The market being in constant evolution (every company improves its products or services to gain shares on the market), the customers’ satisfaction changes according to their expectations and the market standards. It will evolve among customers during the life cycle and use cycle of the product or the service. A customer will be more satisfied after the act of purchase; however, this feeling will decrease during use. In fact, the concurrent offers evolve, and weaken the competing advantages.
Understanding dissatisfaction and satisfaction relationship: perceived quality and expected quality
A customer is dissatisfied when the “perceived quality” of the product or the service is lower than the “expected quality”.
A customer is satisfied when the perceived quality is equal to the expected quality.
A customer is very satisfied when the perceived quality is higher than the expected quality.
However, the fact that an individual is not dissatisfied on a criterion does not mean that he is overall satisfied.
Understanding satisfaction and quality interactions
Customers have expectations with respect to a product or a service. The implementation of a listening process allows the organization or the company to transform these expectations into “desired quality” and to make improvements which are then transmitted or communicated to customers.
Customer satisfaction on the expected quality before the purchase and the perceived quality after the purchase will be then assessed.
To satisfy customers, it is necessary to decrease to the maximum the difference between the expected quality and the perceived quality.
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