MEASURING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION PAPER

Tenzin Tsering
Week 3
BSOP 588- Managing Quality
Stephen Deroeck
9/24/13

Introduction
In order to have a successful business, there must be customers. Customers are considered those who obtain goods or services. Clients may be viewed as those who seek professional advice or guidance. Those who acquire, or agree to acquire, ownership (in case of goods), or benefit or usage (in case of services), in exchange for money or other consideration under a contract of sale are buyers or purchasers (Business Dictionary Definitions, 2011).
Most researchers defined customer satisfaction in terms of how well the company’s goods or services does compared to the expectations of the customer. Some even view customer satisfaction as a characteristic of a total quality culture in an organization. Studies have found that companies who have a higher percentage rate of keeping their customers are more profitable than those with a lesser percentage rate.
Identification of Best Practices
Per Evans & Lindsey in Managing Quality, “To create satisfied customers, the organization needs to identify customers’ needs, design the production and service systems to meet those needs, and measure the results as the basis for improvement” (pg. 190). Likewise, if a company wants to engage customers, then they need to build customer loyalty. A loyal customer will do whatever it takes to do business with the company of their choice regardless of the price of the company’s goods or services. An organization has to obtain customer feedback in order to know how well they are meeting the customer’s expectations and if they are in fact building customer loyalty. People Metrics outlines several things that businesses need to consider when measuring customer satisfaction: one is to compare the customer’s expectations with his/her perception of the service or goods received, another is to measure how likely a customer is to recommend a company’s service to a friend, or just ask the customer to compare his/her experience to the ideal product or service (Customer Satisfaction Metrics, 2009). Companies should also try to understand why the customer may have been dissatisfied or why the customer’s expectations were not met. The best measurements also involve comparisons with competitors.
Different types of satisfaction surveys and indexes are used to measure customer satisfaction. According to our text, measures may include product attributes such as product quality, product performance, usability, and maintainability; service attributes such as attitude, service time, on-time delivery, exception handling, accountability, and technical support; image attributes such as reliability and price; and overall satisfaction measures. The American Customer Satisfaction Index measures customer satisfaction on a national level. “In addition to the company-level satisfaction scores, ACSI produces scores for the causes and consequences of customer satisfaction and their relationships. The measured companies, industries, and sectors are broadly representative of the U.S. economy serving American households (About ACSI, 2013). Customer Relationship Management systems have been created to assist companies in increasing customer loyalty, targeting most profitable customers, and streamlining customer communication processes. Any company that is able to utilize the best of several methodologies is more likely to have a well balanced customer satisfaction measurement.
Types of Industries that Benefit
All industries should measure customer satisfaction. If the business has customers (and all do), then it can benefit from knowing what is it about their business that draws customers in and keeps them coming back.

Linkage to My Organization Practices
My organization seeks to increase the value of their customer relationships in order to build and preserve business. Much like the best practice