As I walked out of Lime Street Station this morning, a large billboard advertisement by the Financial Institution ING Direct caught my eye. It read;
'97% of our mortgage customers would recommend us to friends. Maybe the others just aren't all that chatty'.
As well as being a very clever advertisement (hats off to whoever came up with it), it also showed how Customer Satisfaction Surveys can be commissioned for a variety of different reasons to the benefit of the client. The traditional reason to conduct Customer Surveys is to ensure all customers are happy with the service they are receiving. It is easier, and often cheaper, to retain existing customers than it is to get new ones. Yet many businesses put much more emphasis into chasing new clients, than they do into making sure the ones they have got are happy, and then complain when they walk away. So Customer Satisfaction Research is a way of ensuring you are fully connected with your customer and you can resolve any issues a customer has before they decide to look elsewhere. It also makes you seem like you truly care what the customer thinks.
However, clients we have had in the past have looked to gain other benefits from Customer Satisfaction Studies. Companies who know their customers will be using their competitors as well, will often look to find out how their competitors compare with them in all aspects of performance. They may offer a better service overall, but a competitor could have the edge in a certain area (for example delivery times), which the commissioning company can then look to improve. Sometimes companies look to get ideas for new services or products they should be offering from their clients, which they can then try and incorporate into their business. Whilst one company we have dealt with used Customer Satisfaction Surveys to assess how key customer facing staff were performing and issued bonuses based on the results. Good idea that.
But sometimes, like ING, you just want to tell everyone how great you are. And, as long as you get the right results, you can do that too. If only they'd have commissioned us to do the research....
John Gibbons - Market Research Manager
