Customer Satisfaction and Reputation Management

It is a well know fact that customer satisfaction can have significant impact on the business bottom line. So when we hear that a company goes bankrupt, we, as customer satisfaction professionals, should check how the company was perceived in the marketplace. According to a report, published in October, 2011, by Amplicate on US airlines, American Airlines was Americas most hated airline on social media for the previous 12 months.

No one like to realize that he or she is wrong. Customer Satisfaction is about ensuring customers are happy with your products and services. But sometimes things don’t work out right and need to be fixed. If an organization and the people within have difficulty accepting that they are ‘wrong’ and the customer is ‘right’, they fall into a trap of trying to blame the customer. See a Ted Conference Video by Kathryn Schulz on Being Wrong talks about error blindness and rationalizations used by businesses. The root causes of the Ford Pinto exploding gas tanks are exposed.

A video from 2006 is still circulating the web about an HP printer in Iraq that wasn’t working for the US Military in Iraq and that HP refused to fix without being paid. The soldier admonishes HP and then proceeds to use the printer as target practice with his rifle. Complaints have a life of their own. But is HP really to blame? See the video then ask if the US Military might be at fault here for failure to provide support for equipment used by their soldiers in Iraq; or failing to communicate that how support was available?

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.

A really key factor in retaining customers and preventing problems is to pay attention to what expectations you, as a business owner, are setting with customers. What promises are you making?