Customer satisfaction is the key

In a March, 2005 article, Colleen Lent wrote in the Rockingham (Maine) News on customer satisfaction, number 3 of the Baldrige Criteria. She tells the story of a retail consumer's misadventures with a local department store. The details of the story are so familiar that they hardly bear repeting. To make a long story short, business gets customer; business loses customer; customer tells everyone he knows; business doesn't have a clue.

Lent quotes marketing expert Philip Kotler, who says businesses should:

Set up a complaint/suggestion system

Conduct surveys

Ghost shop

Conduct lost customer analysis

and for business to business organizations,

VISIT THE CUSTOMER (emphasis mine)

It seems so simple. But it it's so simple, why do many businesses fail to follow these steps?

(The article is no longer available on the web)

Categories: customer, service, retail, complaints