Title: Chapter 6 Introduction
Course: Canvas Practice Course > Section: Week 2, 30 March to 02 April

KEY CONCEPTS

Customer satisfaction is nothing more than satisfied customers. It’s that simple but not simple at all. Customer satisfaction is much easier to achieve for a small company than a large corporation. In a small business it is easier for management to have better command and control of the business, initiate needed training, have more personal knowledge and relationships with more employees, and a better knowledge of most if not all facets of a business. Large companies are severely challenged to do all the above. Large companies are more impersonal, and as a rule, slow to change and slow to recognize the need to change.

Different surveying tools can measure customer satisfaction. Today, unlike any other time in history, the customer is king and has no sympathy for either the problems of the large corporation or small company. When the customer writes the check for a product or service they expect nothing less than satisfaction.

The cost of a dissatisfied customer extends well beyond the business lost of that one customer. Typically 95% of service time is spent addressing external customer problems; only 5% is spent on prevention. It costs five times as much to gain a new customer as it does to keep a current customer. It takes 12 positive experiences to make up forone disappointing incident. The average customer tells 9 to 12 other people about poor service or product quality and that frightens away potential new customers.