Customer Satisfaction and Reputation Management

A recent blog post by Seth Godin reiterates the need to under promise and over deliver but bring up the dilemma of how much. Too little expectation setting leads to no engagement. Setting the bar too high means it is hard to over deliver. A technique that really increases customer satisfaction and loyalty is also discussed in this blog post.

Another blow to the sagging reputation management efforts of Toyota is the latest recall of the Lexus LS Sedans for steering problems. The models affected are the 2010 LS 460, LS 460 L, LS 600h, and the LS 600h and represent about 11,000 cars worldwide. The Lexus ls 600 costs over $100,000 US! The problem seems to be both hardware and software. This latest recall is a further setback to Toyota’s attempts to improve its reputation and customer satisfaction.

Companies who want to foster customer loyalty and sustain high levels of customer satisfaction have to move beyond simply meeting customer expectations to delighting the customer. Why is this so important? What exactly is ‘exceeding customer expectations’. Learn how your organization can exceed customer expectations and a road map to get started now.

Toyota’s customer satisfaction plans are not going well. The consumer expects Toyota to care about their safety and notify them of potential problems and fixes. They also expect swift action on issues, with a strong action plan to fix and some indication of how Toyota will ensure this kinds of problems will not recur in the future. Toyota is bungling these actions. The Toyota Prius and Lexus hybrid models are being added to Toyota’s quality woes with a possible defect in brakes. While Toyota claims to have fixed the problem in the new cars it is manufacturing it has no action plan for current affected Prius owners. Toytoa’s CEO apologizes. Also see the video of customer reactions.

This post contains two videos that review why your organization or business needs to be watching over social media, what its impact is, 3 major shifts in customer feedback and what you should do about it.

Yesterday an article appeared in several newspapers about how angry tweets (on Twitter) can force a company to back off a geographically localized program intended to promote good will. A franchisee of Tim Hortons, a coffee shop competitor of Starbucks, in Rhode Island agreed to provide free coffee for a local program, celebrating Marriage and Family Day. It turns out the sponsors of the program were against gay marriage and this brought out the gay community and those supporting the gay community in droves. A petition was electronically signed by about 2000 followers and angry ‘tweets’ and facebook entries were broadcast, often at the rate of several per minute.

A study by IBM® Institute of Business Value of 30,000 US consumers in September and November 2008 revealed that, on average, consumers will drop allegiance to retailers after an average of 3.1 negative experiences. To promote customer satisafaction, eight key areas that affect the customer experiences are covered in this article.