The Gutsball Blog
Why Customer Satisfaction is Important…Really
At HP Financial Services, we go to great lengths to measure customer satisfaction. In our parlance, it’s known as Total Customer Experience or TCE. Many companies do, so, it must be important, right? It is, but how you turn that information into enhanced customer loyalty and competitive advantage is the real key.
It may sound too simplistic to ask the question, “Why is customer satisfaction important?” But the answers are perhaps less obvious than you think. Sure, you’ve got the typical indicators such as competitive comparison which is correlated to something we used to call Customer Loyalty which has traditionally been closely linked to market share statistics. And, market share results have been known to drive all kinds of go-to-market decisions including, importantly, marketing expense – usually a big number in many companies.
The Imperative of Operating Principles
When the winds of change blow, what do you hang onto? When uncertainties abound, what’s your anchor? When complexity is heaped upon complication, do you have a baseline? When catastrophe strikes, and it always does, can you be counted upon to do the right thing, first time and every time?
These, and similar, questions are put to business leaders almost daily. How they are addressed is easily as important as the “what” that gets decided upon and implemented. Regardless of the issue or circumstance, successful navigation of troubled waters begins with unwavering adherence to a set of clearly articulated operating principles. And, no, I am not referring to a set of platitudes that become miniaturized, laminated in plastic and carried around in a shirt pocket or purse. Rather, I am talking about “this is what we do and how we do it” and being consistent about it over a period of time so that your people develop confidence in your leadership because they know what to expect from you no matter what.