Customer
satisfaction is an outcome of three forces. They are:
·
Company
processes
·
Company
employees
·
Customer
expectations
Company
operational processes are important because product quality and performance are
entirely determined by these processes. Thus, a very definite product with
consistent quality emerges when KFC sells chicken to its customer. This happens
because KFC has realised that quality is not what they test in a product, but
is what they build into it – through validated operational processes.
Company
employees who serve/deliver the product play a vital role in ensuring customer
satisfaction. None of us would like to be served an excellent meal of KFC
chicken by a nasty, rude, and quarrelsome employee. KFC, therefore, ensures a
very definite behavioural pattern from its employees through scientific
recruitment and precise training programmes.
Customer
expectations may be high or low. This has a strong bearing on customer
satisfaction. If expectations are low, it is rather easy to achieve customer
satisfaction through modest products and modest services. But for a customer
with high expectations, the serving organizations need to put in the best
possible.
Customer
expectations are important because an organization’s failure in meeting them
means a dissatisfied customer. The only option the organization has is to
provide consistent satisfaction to the customer through optimum-level
performance. Let us now understand how is customer expectation can be
generated.
Customer
delight, as has been already mentioned, is an outcome of a situation when
product performance exceeds customer expectations. This is linked to the type
of customer. Type ’A’ customers have expectations of added value. When
expectations are met, they achieve normal expectations. If expectations are not
met, they are dissatisfied. Type ‘B’ customers, on other hand, have no
expectation of value addition. If value addition is not made, they are
satisfied, but if value addition is made, they are delighted.