The Customer Service Survey
VocaLabs' weblog providing news and commentary on the challenges of providing good customer service.
What Is Caller Satisfaction Anyway?
Tuesday - February 28, 2006 01:10 PM in
Last week, we received a request for proposal (RFP) from a governmental entity asking for a caller satisfaction testing survey service. 14 pages long, there isn't a single reference to define what they mean by "satisfaction", and our response will be more challenging as a result. As initially obvious as it seems, being satisfied is a "squishy" term that is difficult to quantify. Very often, in the mind of the consumer satisfied means "not overly disappointed", but in the mind of the entity delivering service means "happy". This results in a disconnect with one consequence being a lack of incentive to improve service quality. So when you look at your own satisfaction scores, don't lose sight of this truth. We have data that shows about 3/4 of the customers who switch vendors had previously rated themselves as satisfied or very satisfied. Satisfied is not an indicator of brand loyalty as much as an indicator of mediocrity. Don't "satisfy" your customers; delight them, surprise them. Make the contact experience different and refreshing.
We discover time and again that good service doesn't cost more than mediocrity. In truth, a good case can be made that a positive experience doesn't just retain customers and positively impact company revenues; but that it can actually LOWER customer care expense with fewer call backs from frustrated clients, better agent retention and more.
Posted by Rick Rappe
Posted by Rick Rappe
Posted at 01:10 PM by | | | |