Measuring Customer Satisfaction

For improving customer satisfaction it is essential for the supplier to measure it. It is purely believed that if anything is not measurable then it is not authentic.

Customers are the most important asset for any organization as they are only responsible to drives the business.

Measuring customer satisfaction helps in identifying specific customer information which is needed to run business smoothly. Following are the information and details that could be generated after measuring customers’ satisfaction:

1. Business Related: Measuring customer satisfaction helps an organization to identify the efficiency of its business strategies and marketing tactics and encompasses if the organization is customer focused or not. It also provides analyzed details on how many numbers of customers have defected, how much loss the business has incurred and up to what extent the profit is decayed due to customer defect.

   A customer is usually dissatisfied when his/her expectations are not met or the commitments from supplier are not fulfilled reasonably and within the given time span. This becomes a serious issue for the customers as the delay will obvious affect their image too. The customer usually shares these problems and issues with other customers which hiders the business of the supplier.

   Some of these unsatisfied customers launch complaints but most of the other customers simply defect to other suppliers without even informing which creates a big void in the business processes of supplier because they did not get chance to analyze the reasons of customer defection.

   Loss of customers is directly proportionate to loss of business and profitability. If an organization is able to measure business related aspects of customer satisfaction then they become capable to bridge the gaps between them and customers to enhance more customer satisfaction among their peer customers.

2. Customer Related: By measuring customer related aspects of customer satisfaction following details can be entailed:
   1. How many total numbers of customers have defected?
   2. Specifically which customers have been defected?
   3. Reason why they have defected and where exactly they have defected?
   4. Measurement of customer satisfaction always helps a supplier to analyze appropriate reasons of lost of customers and take measures to avoid this. It also provides analyzed information about the business loss in the coming future. This actually helps the supplier to be profitable because cost involved in acquiring a customer is comparatively higher then the cost involved in retaining an existing customer.
   5. It also helps the supplier to identify the value of their products and services according to the customers’ perception. If customer is dissatisfied with products and services then there is a need for supplier to check the performance and quality of the product and services so that other customers could not complaint regarding the same.
   6. It can also analyze the exact need and requirement of customer so that measures are taken accordingly to satisfy each and every customer.

3. Suppliers Related: Following are the supplier’s specific information that could be generated while measuring customer satisfaction:
   1. It helps the supplier to conclude about his own image, strength and weak points.
   2. It helps the supplier to identify his area of perfection and competency so that they flourish in monopoly of specific products and services.
   3. It helps in encompassing the organization’s position according to the benchmark possessed in the market by competitors.

The best way to improve customer satisfaction is to first measure it and then apply methods to enhance it. It helps the supplier to always keep a check on allover business processes by identifying strong and weak aspects and creating strong bond with all their customers to enhance business.