Why Won’t United Learn?

I tracked down Carroll (the musician whose guitar was damaged by United back in 2009) to find out if he’d joined in Dr. Dao’s defense.  Carroll reports he was coincidentally returning from a customer satisfaction conference at Disney World when the overbooking incident occurred.  While Carroll says he’s not currently contemplating writing another song (he wrote two other ‘United Breaks Guitars’ songs to join his original) he has a lot to say about the implications from the current incident.  Here’s a summary of Carroll’s observations with my own comments interjected.

• A Culture of “Us Against Them”  United suffers an endemic, cultural flaw. Carroll points out – from his own experience – that the abuse and disrespect he (and subsequently, Dr. Dao) received suggests disrespect for passengers is endemic to the United corporate culture. It’s an “us against them” perspective Carroll says, explaining that customers have never been acknowledged as a vital component of the United business model. Rather, customers are perceived as a factor to be contended with. Carroll calls this a “war room mentality” – someone has to win, there will be many losers.
• An Employee Epidemic  Carroll’s interaction with United went so deep into the organization that he came to feel that there was a ‘sickness’ within the company. A direct quote from a United employee put emotion into this feeling, “If you think it’s bad flying with us, try working here!
• Failure to Accept Blame  In United’s effort to deflect responsibility they show a total lack of compassion for their passengers.  I’ve previously discussed the futility and incorrectness of trying to duck blame.  When disasters occur, companies need to take ownership and move forward.
• Branding Naivete  A failure to understand that passengers create value for any brand through their positive word of mouth.  In their many conversations with others about their interaction with any company, they become ‘storytellers’.  United’s dreadful mishandling of Sunday’s flight has fueled millions of people to share a very negative story about its brand.  (Total viewings of the YouTube.com video stand at 17 million and counting!)
• A Lack of Understanding  United’s initial explanation for the forceful deplaning of Dr. Dao cited the airline’s Terms of Carriage. As I understand this document, the terms primarily relate to actions prior to boarding an aircraft – nullifying their application to passengers already seated on an aircraft!  If I’m correct, United’s staff and management aren’t very familiar with their own documents, showing a lack of proper training.  As a vital part of any service organization, when training is either incomplete or misguided the performance of the organization is doomed.

To hear Carroll’s own commentary, click here.

An Amateur’s PR Performance from An Awarded Corporate Communicator

Ultimately United’s top management revealed their own company-centric view of their business; their complete lack of compassion; and their total disregard for their customers.  Responding to the forceful deplaning of Dr. Dao, Oscar Munoz, United’s CEO, though recently recognized as PRWeek’s Communicator of the Year, embarrassed himself by adopting a familiar, yet totally flawed PR path:

Monday, April 10

First thing Monday morning, CEO Munoz blamed the passenger for the incident and told United employees he supported them 100% and that “we’ll get through this”.

Later Monday, he continued to defend United’s employees, though he globally expressed regret for the “situation”.

Tuesday, April 11

By Tuesday, Munoz’s attitude had softened a bit.  He then describes the “event” as “horrific” and now offers his “deepest apologies for ‘what happened’”.  In addition, he makes a commitment to “fix what’s broken” and promises a review by April 30.

Wednesday. April 12

Then, on Wednesday morning, in a live TV interview on ABC’s Good Morning America, Munoz admits feeling “shame” when he saw the video of Dr. Dao being dragged from the flight.  (This is Munoz’s first recognition of an actual person being involved and possibly harmed.)  He goes on to say, “This can never – will never happen – again on a United Airlines flight. That’s my premise and that’s my promise.”

Later Wednesday, United announces it will give a full refund to every passenger on the flight.

How Does United Measure Up with Passengers?

To add some external objectivity to this discussion I thought it might be instructive to take a look at last year’s ACSI rankings for the Airline industry.  ACSI reported an airline industry average of 72, with scores ranging from a high of 80 (JetBlue and Southwest) to 62 (Spirit).  United falls below the other two major airlines, American (72) and Delta (71) at a lukewarm score of 68.

CEO Munoz, in his latest interviews, has found the appropriate ‘voice’ and perspective for the leader of a ‘broken’ organization.  It remains to be seen whether his words are simply issue-urgent rhetoric or indicate an actual awakening.  I hope they’re the later.

Only One Chance to Make a First Impression

Marketers understand the importance of first impressions.  The many failures of the Affordable Care Act’s website are prompting many Americans to become even less positive about the Act, itself.  As we know, with new products, consumers turn to every ‘input’ or piece of information they can find to help them evaluate the product/service itself.  That’s why we, in marketing, place so much importance on understanding and properly managing the total customer experience.

According to polls:

• An Oct 17-20 Washington Post/ABC study found that 56 percent of Americans believe the website problems are related to bigger ones with the Act itself, while 40 percent view the website problems as isolated incidents.
• Preceding the website going live there were more questions than answers on the Act among Americans.  A September Washington Post/ABC study found 62% of Americans saying they lacked the information they needed to understand the changes implemented by the ACA.

A Failure to Acknowledge the Customer Experience?

So why has our government gone live with such a poorly constructed website?  It may just be, that in their own political worlds in Washington, failing as some say to listen even to their own constituencies, that listening (or caring) for potential healthcare customers is an anathema.

In just one attempt to assuage disgruntled applicants, a frustrated President Obama, in a Rose Garden discussion, suggested that applicants experiencing problems bypass the website and use the toll-free number set up for the program.  Apparently the President was unaware that calls placed to the help line redirect callers back to the website!

A ‘Delivery Problem’

In another attempt to explain early failures, the President and others blamed the “overwhelming number of visits” the ACA site has received in its first three weeks of operation.  The total number of visits is estimated at 19 million or 900,000 a day.  Washington should have turned to Jeff Bezos at Amazon.  His website easily handles 149 million visitors a month (4.9 million a day) – that’s five and a half times more visitors than the Act’s website!

Other sources, in the know, say a conscious decision was made early on that’s primarily responsible for the long wait times applicants are experiencing.  Apparently some executives in the process decided that rushing applicants through to a pricing page would have created massive amounts of ‘sticker shock’…  And so, a whole application front-end was designed to collect sufficient information to allow the website to deduce if an applicant was eligible for any discounts or subsidies.  Then, the prices offered were hoped to be perceived as more ‘palatable’.  This qualification step has significantly slowed down the application process by requiring excessive amounts of information to be entered by applicants – way too soon in a customary application process.  The subsidy evaluation also makes the application process ‘clunky’ because the internal algorithms must review each applicant’s information and determine if discounts are applicable.

Construction costs, to date, have reportedly snowballed to more than $634 million against initial 2011 estimates of $94 million.  (As a point of comparison, Facebook operated for a full six years before exceeding $600 million in programming expenses; Twitter functioned quite well from 2006 to 2011 on a budget of $360 million.)  The ACA website would have been a very attractive assignment for many silicon valley programmers…but wait, no similarly-experienced programming companies were used!  Instead, the government turned to an unknown supplier, CGI Federal – a Canadian owned firm!  More familiarity with internet commerce might have been an advantage.  According to The New York Times and MSNBC the website’s programming consists of 500 million lines of code – approximately five times the amount of code in a typical major bank’s website!

And, as some experts have pointed out, with such substantial problems at enrollment, one can only wonder how robust the programming will be in handling day-to-day operations including: data transfer, correct billing, and accurate communication about federal subsidies.

So What Can You Learn From Obama Care’s Problems?

The ACA’s challenges with the new website call to mind several guidelines for introducing new websites or website designs that better address the total customer experience:

1. Hire programming experts with direct experience in the field your website will compete in.
2. Labor over your site’s structure, conforming it as much as possible to target user’s skills, needs and concerns.
3. Discipline your information collection process to not require an inordinate amount of information to be demanded up front…allow the potential customer to gain some comfort with the site.
4. Let target customers experience the site as a prototype.  Get them to express their feelings and reactions as they attempt to navigate through the site and make purchases.
5. Test, test, and test.  You can never test a new site too much before going live.
6. If possible, roll the system out gradually; don’t go ‘global’ your first day!

While the Regulation is causing much controversy and discussion in Europe, remarkably on ‘our side of the pond’ very little energy is being directed at the underlying problems.  Instead, Washington seems content to wait for industry self-regulation.  More distressing, however, is Americans’ personal apathy toward the whole issue; a disregard, naiveté, or ambivalence towards allowing their personal lives to be viewed and be accessible on the social media.  Americans, when divided into generations, no doubt differ in their attitudes toward and comfort with ‘living on the internet’.  The youngest generations (the Millennials and today’s Gen Z, also labeled the “i-Generation”) are likely most comfortable/disregardful of living in cyberspace.  These generations just can’t seem to get enough Internet visibility; exposing everything about themselves and their behavior with wanton candidness.

The Two Faces of Internet-Interactivity

And so we arrive at a conundrum opposing personal privacy (limited or controlled ‘invisibility’) with online conspicuousness (‘internet exhibitionism’).  As marketers we understand the benefits to our customers (and to our bottom-line) of them sharing personal facts and behaviors with us.  Perhaps our only obligation (as businesspeople) is to deliver on our implicit promise by offering them better servicing and providing them unique benefits as the result of knowing more about them.  But, on the other hand, as responsible citizens, another concern comes to mind; that of providing for the safety and security of our society’s ‘innocents’.

And so ultimately, if not our Government, our Corporations will need to consider the rights individuals should have in this new information age.  Indeed, there is a real difference between customers knowingly entrusting information with a corporation for a specific purpose; and the same corporation (or a third party) surreptitiously ‘observing’ and recording customers’ behavior through devices whose electronic capabilities most Americans are still unaware.  Specifically, GPS-enabled devices.  And GPS technology is no longer limited to Smartphones.  Today cameras, cars, athletic equipment (to name just a few), can all beam user and usage information to any monitoring company.

Nowhere is the potential conflict between volunteerism and voyeurism more apparent than in the category of geolocation services.  Foursquare, a leading geolocation app, offers benefits to both customers and retailers.  If you’re keen on “checking in” with Foursquare as you arrive at your favorite restaurant, you should recognize you are broadcasting your behavior (and present location) to others; your Foursquare “Friends”.  You may take some comfort in knowing you have to manually check in, to be so identified.  But, once you do, there you are in cyberspace and conspicuously ‘on the grid’.

Most of these issues require balancing benefits against real and potential costs/risks.  But responsible and thoughtful usage will be rewarded with long-term success and a minimization of problems and abuse.  This won’t be an easy learning process for most consumers and the potential for loss, damage or injury looms ‘along the way’.

The Regulation, say its promoters, is aimed at “rebalancing” the relationship between the internet and the individual.  It appears to have several facets:

• ‘Tattoo removal’  Individuals today have no easy way of removing information about themselves from the internet; it remains in hyperspace forever.  The EU Regulation would allow private citizens to remove (or ask that it be removed) information about themselves of a personal nature.  This provision (Article 17) has been dubbed “the right to be forgotten”.
• Proactive, Opt-In  The Regulation would also specify that individuals need to give permission before their behavior can be monitored and used and/or sold to third parties.  This is the “opt-in for tracking” provision of the Regulation.  Currently data gathering organizations, both in the US and EU, are building profiles of customers’ behaviors, browsing habits, and shopping routines by tracking them online and off.  The information is acquired through numerous third-parties, with retailers a prime source.  The organizations then sell this observational data without the knowledge or permission of the customers.
• Trickle down  Perhaps most controversial is the mandate on data gatherers to inform third parties to whom data has been sold of an included consumer’s petition for his/her information to be expunged.  Excluded from this provision are journalistic entries, comments on articles, and posts to blogs.  These areas are excluded on grounds of freedom of expression.

The EU’s Regulation calls for substantial fines for organizations refusing to comply with requests to erase customers’ personal details.  The current penalty structure (yet to be finalized) calls for fines up to 2% of global gross income.

Avenues to address the do not track option could include software options providing a “do not track” setting, much the same as today’s browsers allow blocking the acceptance of cookies from sites visited.  Still, it’s conceivable that many consumers may still opt-in to tracking (the way many allow cookies to be placed in their computer) for the benefits provided by the tracking data; conceivably merchandise offers, information blasts, etc..

What Qualifies as a Business Asset?

[Allow me a quick aside.]  Unfortunately, in sales of American businesses, a loyal customerbase is not specifically identified as a business asset.  Instead, the value of loyal customers is often collapsed into the accounting category “goodwill”.  While this may be a useful construct for the accountants (providing a “catchall” for any items justifying a sales price exceeding the market value of all tangibles), it is a terribly disregardful term from a marketing perspective.  It’s really time for modern American accounting practices to catch up with other countries in recognizing a database of devoted customers as a real business asset.

Think Strategically

Putting aside the recognition of the customerbase, if one purchases the assets of an ongoing business including its “goodwill” (the allied customer relationships) why proclaim to the market that “we’ve changed who we are” with the ‘Under New Management’ banner?  Undoubtedly there’s some of the new owner’s ego driving such an announcement.  But the proclamation seems to contradict the primary motivation for buying the business in the first place: to capitalize on the current profitable relationships with customers.  Why not a stealthy transition?  “We’re the same as we always were…only some faces have changed!”

The single justification for announcing we’re “Under New Management,” is the situation wherein the new owner has invested in a failing business…  In this case five or more degrees of separation are not only desirable, they may be necessary.  But why then keep the former business’s name?  Why not reinvent the business with a new name and positioning?  Retaining the trappings of a failing business is like buying a haunted house…the new owner will be plagued by the specters of poor customer relationships and faulty products and services (of the previous ownership) over and over…  The only logical solution; an ‘exorcism’ – a sign proclaiming we’ve thrown the rascals out and are now “Under New Management”.

Make a Strategic Assessment

So, my ‘sagely advice’ to those thinking about acquiring an existing business is a thoughtful assessment of the current customerbase: How many profitable customer-relationships are included? How strong are the bonds? How much opportunity is there to grow the business in the future?  For opportunities passing this vetting, the loyalty of the current customerbase is ready for exploitation.  Then, when the business is acquired, the new owners can leverage the loyalty of the current customers by building on their affiliation with the enterprise and encouraging their positive word of mouth to win more customers over in the future.  In this case, the posted sign should read, “Operating Under a More Enlightened Customer Relationship Philosophy”.

• Most mothers want to be surprised with their present;
• But, Moms would rather get no present at all than deal with a bad one;
• And, unfortunately, you may never know if you’ve selected a ‘winning present’ for your mother because 84% of moms indicated they’d “suffer in silence” if they received a disappointing gift.

There’s another reminder in these findings that transcends our Moms and Mothers’ Day.  It’s this.  Just because your customers aren’t openly complaining about your products and services doesn’t mean that they’re happy!  Like some Moms, they may be suffering in silence.  But unlike moms, customers encountering a bad experience are a more ‘vengeful’ group.  They:

1. May feel so worn down and/or skeptical that their complaining won’t result in any improvement so that they remain quiet allowing you to continue to make the same mistake over again and on other customers, or
2. May simply decide never to buy your products/services again – decreasing your bottom-line, or
3. May voice their displeasure to a sales clerk, a repairman, a teller or other representative of your firm, but the complaint never gets communicated up to management (either because there’s no escalation process, or because staff has seen how management treats the bearer of bad news), or
4. They do complain, but rather than to your organization, to other consumers; either through the public social media that you may monitor, or through private social media (their friends, relatives, neighbors and co-workers ) by way of phone calls, conversations, text messages, and emails that you can’t monitor or easily learn of.

 How Can You Address This Challenge? 

I can’t offer you help with Mother’s Day gift-giving, but I can help you with your customers.  Certainly you need to have a well-publicized customer service function that responds to customers in a timely fashion.  And, you need to monitor the social media to discover other unhappy customers who’ve vented publicly.  My strategic recommendation is not to rely on any current customer satisfaction survey process you have in place, but rather that you conduct short Buzz assessments with customers (using a process like Customer Experience Partner’s Buzz Barometer^TM).  Further, a lot of learning about customer dissatisfaction is dependent upon management’s philosophy towards and openness to criticism.  Make certain that your company’s culture embraces listening to and learning from customer feedback.  Afterall, customer feedback has often been described as “a gift”.

But beyond listening, consider how you can also acknowledge feedback from customers.  I strongly believe in thanking customers for both their negative and positive feedback.  Your acknowledgment is made all the stronger if you explain to customers how you’ve acted on complaints.

Welcome to Chet’s Diner

According to Rob’s parable, a group of businesspeople were on a project somewhere in the northern woods of Minnesota.  At the end of their first day on location they were ready for dinner, but didn’t have high hopes considering their ‘backwoods location’.  “You should try Chet’s Diner”, a native suggested.  A ‘diner’ sounded far less than they were hungering for, but with no other immediate option, they set out to find Chet’s Diner.   Five miles out of town, they reached Chet’s.  Instantly, a parking valet stepped up to park their car.  Inside the Diner’s entryway (decorated with a massive display of fresh flowers) a friendly maître de greeted them and promised a table would be prepared at once.  For the remainder of the evening they were regaled with an unbelievable wine list, cuisine to rival the finest New York restaurant, superb service, and surprisingly reasonable prices.  When the meal ended, their waiter treated them all to a dessert ‘on the house’.  Upon leaving they were asked to complete a short satisfaction survey.  The primary question asked, “Please rate Chet’s Diner compared to your expectations”.  They were all happy to give Chet’s the highest mark, “far exceeded my expectations”.   And, at the end of the evening, the Diner’s manager was delighted with the scores the restaurant had received.

How Can They Top That?

After work the second day, the business people all agreed there was no reason to search for any other restaurant, and they all eagerly returned to Chet’s.  The same valet service was offered, the entryway’s floral display was refreshed with new flowers, the wine list was still unbelievable, the cuisine perfect, the prices still surprisingly reasonable and a complementary dessert was again offered to them.  They were truly ecstatic.  Upon leaving they were once again asked to complete the short satisfaction survey.  Having come back to relive their previous night’s experience, this time as they encountered the primary question, they checked the middle category, “as expected”.   Reviewing the scores that evening, the manager was disappointed to find the restaurant had only met but not exceeded expectations.

And that’s the problem with striving to continually exceed expectations; your baseline is a moving target.  Expectations are simply too demanding and too unrealistic as a measure for customer satisfaction or for any business practice!  It’s far better to strive to satisfy completely…

How Perceptive Are Customers?

Most customers fail to recognize the quality built into a product or the efforts extended by a service-provider.  They’re generally unable to fully appreciate the differences between one company’s product and the products of competitors.  The fact is, customers rarely possess the observational qualities nor the expertise by which to objectively compare product offerings.  And, they’re seldom astute enough to appreciate the added value contributed by the perks and niceties that accompany the products and services they buy.  That’s why it’s critical for marketers to call customers’ attention to these values.  Otherwise credit isn’t given and increased loyalty (the primary goal for offering the superior services/products in the first place) may never be realized.

For some time I’ve called the practice of identifying and touting the benefits and values delivered to customers, the “management of evidence”.  For companies doing well for their customers, it’s appropriate to see that the customers understand and appreciate what’s being delivered to them.  Consider an example.  Norton, the computer security firm, (that might be protecting the computer on which you’re reading this) provides excellent protective software for computers.  But if their software is doing its job, an owner will likely never be bothered; it’s definitely a ‘low profile’ service.  Norton has apparently recognized its need to reinforce its value to customers by managing evidence. It accomplishes this with a monthly top-line report of the number of computer files checked in its latest scan; how many problems it detected; and what it has done to safeguard a computer.  And, each time the service updates its virus-detecting database it informs owners with a pop-up.  Norton is doing a great job of managing evidence to remind owners it’s more than ‘paying for itself’.

Tooting Our Own Horns

Most executives seem uncomfortable with the concept of managing evidence.  Western cultures teach the values of modesty.  Further, managers often either assume customers will be insulted by having good performance pointed out to them, or that “all customers should understand the added benefits offered by their products”.  They’re just plain wrong!

Astute managers need to learn how much (or how little) of the value they’re delivering is actually being perceived by their customers and credited to them.

Word of Mouth Just Happens, Right?

But the apparent contradictions don’t stop at NPS and C-Sat.  Costco claims to also enjoy strong, positive word of mouth!  Actual, in-market dialogue about a company often doesn’t track well with these more traditional measures.  So, it’s worth taking a look at how Costco manages to turn purchases of 6-month supplies of olive oil or ‘convenient’ twenty-four packs of D-batteries into a shopping experience that customers actually talk about.

Of course numerous possible explanations come to mind.  It could be that shoppers like to brag about how much money they save, like the convenience of ‘one-stop shopping’, etc.  But according to Robin Ross, Senior Director of Corporate Marketing, Costco’s ability to generate word of mouth also has to do with offering unexpected surprises and instilling the sense of a ‘treasure hunt’ into every shopping visit. Costco understands that providing good bargains and a satisfactory shopping experience may keep customers coming back (until a new competitor comes to town with even lower prices), but these more mundane issues are not likely to stimulate conversations with friends, neighbors, relatives and co-workers.  And, it’s this positive word of mouth that communicates and perpetuates the memorable customer experience which, in turn, helps keep customers returning and attracts new customers as well.

Advertising Isn’t Involved!

Stimulating and maintaining dialogues about itself with little or no advertising demanded what Ross describes as a “better idea”.  Costco elected a unique strategy.  They added “conversation products” into their product mix; a $3,000 toilet, a $2+ million dollar ring, and computer-measured, custom-tailored men’s suits.  These items are both unconventional and unexpected offerings in a discounter-setting.  Certainly not impulse purchases; Costco didn’t expect to sell many of these items.  But along with other, more affordable ‘treasures’, they provide customers stories to tell.  And, this unusual merchandise provides customers a reason to talk about their trips to Costco.  Embedded in the resulting word of mouth may be mentions of other, more traditional purchases; the wild salmon they bought or the rewarding savings they received at the in-store pharmacy.  The next time a friend mentions Costco pay attention, you may be a recipient of just such a report.

Strategies for increasing the volume and positive tonality of word of mouth aren’t unique to Costco; but clearly Ross and his colleagues have recognized the opportunities still apparently unrecognized by others.  Satisfied customers who are given: 1) Motivation, 2) Content: stories to tell, and 3) Opportunity: chances to relate their content, will indeed communicate with their social sphere about a brand.  Depending upon the category it might happen through public social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) or private social media (email, phone call, text message, or even a face-to-face conversation), but surely it will happen.

The ultimate message; word of mouth can be easily generated and can be strategically managed.  Conventional wisdom about the uncontrollability of word of mouth no longer holds – and perhaps never did.

1. Create an Action Plan: No customer ought be contacted, nor any data collected without a process in place to act on the insights gained.  Going under the title, Action Planning, such processes pre-assign items measured in the survey to specific departments.  These departments are considered the “owners” of each measured performance issue.  When survey results are reported, it is clear who will undertake the necessary improvement(s) in the lowest rated performance issues – the departments “owning” these issues.  Highly sophisticated Action Plans also consider the impact (or responsiveness) of improvements in each performance issue to overall customer satisfaction; improvement initiatives are prioritized to those issues whose improvement will most positively impact overall satisfaction.

2. Conduct a Census: When a satisfaction questionnaire is distributed to only a sample of customers, the measurement program fails to communicate the business’s intention of listening to all of its customers.  While packaged goods manufacturers may be hard-pressed to conduct a census, for producers of: durables; specialty items; and services a census is not only achievable, it’s highly desirable.  As an outreach to all customers, the satisfaction measurement program becomes yet another component of the overall customer experience.

3. Measure Continually: A satisfaction process that is conducted on an ‘event basis’ (only periodically) sends multiple messages – all detrimental.  First, employees (and especially dealers or other agents) may become conditioned by the periodicity; performing especially well only during measurement periods – relaxing in non-measurement periods.  Second, employees may begin to question the sincerity of management’s commitment to customer satisfaction as it seems content to only measure satisfaction on a periodic basis.

4. Drive the Questionnaire with Your Database: Far too many satisfaction programs are conducted without any linkage to the customer database.  This estrangement results in the demeaning, typical first question: “Which of our products do you own?”  This is an embarrassment to the business.  If any part of the satisfaction measurement process is targeted to strengthen relationships with customers, that objective is immediately undone by this one, flawed question.  By driving a satisfaction questionnaire with information contained in the customerbase, a business demonstrates that it ‘knows’ its customers.  Customer cooperation with the survey program is bound to increase by virtue of the ‘connection’ the linked questionnaire demonstrates.

5. Disaggregate Your Results: Reporting averages not only hides low scores, it also turns attention away from the percentage of customers who are truly delighted.  And, need we remind ourselves, there is no average….it’s an imaginary median.  An average score of 7.5 on a ten-point scale totally conceals the 18% of customers who are completely dissatisfied and the 12% who are completely satisfied.  It’s far better to report on the extremes of your data.  This way specific goals can be conceived such as reducing the proportion of dissatisfied customers by half, or striving to delight at least one-quarter of one’s customers.

6. Communicate Your Findings: The communication of satisfaction results is a broad field with many options.  Obviously a program that never reports results to the operational level, is either a “showcase program” or one very poorly designed.  For understanding and improvement to occur, results must be communicated to customer-facing employees.  But there’s an additional opportunity that is seldom exploited.  Why not communicate results to customers as well?  By involving customers in the reporting process, a business ‘validates’ its measurement processes.  It demonstrates that the information is actually being analyzed and acted upon.

7. Celebrate Results: Results shouldn’t be rolled out in a punitive way.  A large number of satisfaction measurement programs become the companies’ disciplinarians.  Their critical reports are dreaded by all; they are shunned rather than embraced.  Improvement is unlikely.  With a constructive attitude, even poor results can be announced in a way that coaches improvement.  After all, the tonality of the reporting process will invariably flavor how employees feel about the total satisfaction measurement program.

8. Solve Problems Raised by Individual Customers: Don’t treat the satisfaction measuring process as simply data-gathering.  I’ve seen too many returned questionnaires in which customers beg for help, but the responsible corporate department takes the stand, “we can’t interact at the individual level, we’re sworn to keep customers’ identities anonymous.  This is an archaic attitude.  If a customer takes the time to complete a questionnaire and in so doing asks for resolution of a problem, it’s a dereliction of responsibility not to offer to fix the problem.   (For a further discussion of this ideology, read my article, Customer Research, Not Marketing Research.)

Indeed, if a properly practiced, satisfaction survey can align a business to the needs and wants of its customers – making the conduct of its business a “win-win” situation; both the business and its customers benefit.  Let me know your thoughts, I’d like to hear them!