Publisher's Synopsis
Public and private sector organisations increasingly understand that meeting or exceeding the requirements of their customers is their most important objective. In the private sector there is an abundance of evidence from Harvard Business School and others that customer satisfaction and loyalty account for the biggest difference between the most and least successful companies in most markets. In public sector, most organisations are tasked by Government to provide a high quality of service to their customers. To monitor their success, most organisations conduct customer satisfaction surveys, but many do so very badly, producing inaccurate, even misleading information that is totally unsuitable for decision making or for monitoring organisations real success in meeting their customers requirements. This is the first fully referenced text on measuring and monitoring customer satisfaction. It combines the experience of three practitioners from the UK's leading specialist in customer satisfaction surveys with published practitioner and academic knowledge from both sides of the Atlantic. It provides a clear, step by step guide to conducting a customer satisfaction survey that will produce a measure that accurately reflects how satisfied or dissatisfied customers feel and will reliably monitor changes in customer satisfaction over time. As well as a thorough explanation of relevant research techniques, the book fully explores the differences between customer satisfaction and loyalty as well as the relationship between the two. It also explains how customer satisfaction makes companies more successful and focuses on how to produce actionable outcomes from surveys that will help organisations to improve customer satisfaction. It is suitable for managers and practitioners who are responsible for customer service, satisfaction or loyalty in their organisations or for senior management seeking a better understanding of this key aspect of business success. For students, lecturers and relevant academic courses, the book provides the only comprehensive and fully referenced text on the subject.