Definition Customer Satisfaction - ISO 9001 Definition

[somashekar]

Me and my colleague (from QA department) have argued how to monitor customer satisfaction if one can even define what customer satisfaction exactly is.

We can consider a lot of measures i.e. customer feedback showing a positive trend, increase repeat business etc. The difficult part is defining it. I think everyone has different definitions on what is customer satisfaction, and therefore, monitoring customer satisfaction many different ways.

So, how do you define customer satisfaction? How do you monitor it? What is the definition of customer satisfaction in the context of ISO 90001? Do think satisfaction will always be up to the customer?

Customer satisfaction is about Customer telling that he is satisfied with you ., and not you telling yourself that your customer is satisfied. That is all about it.
Do what ever and check with customer if he is satisfied .....

 

[mguilbert]

I know the powers that be try to use a positive word. But measuring customer dissatisfaction works better IMO. ie complaints

 

[Boingo-boingo]

I know the powers that be try to use a positive word. But measuring customer dissatisfaction works better IMO. ie complaints

Not sure why you say that. Most people who are familiar with customer satisfaction analysis know that, for every dissatisfied customer that formally expresses some dissatisfaction, you have other dissatisfied customers that won't bother with the feedback and might be looking for alternative suppliers.

Customer satisfaction monitoring can be a frustrating activity, because many customers are unwilling to share with suppliers their level of (dis)satisfaction, until a major problem erupts, but totally reactive customer satisfaction process, i.e., focusing solely on complaints, can be a terrible strategy.

 

[Jim Wynne]

Not sure why you say that. Most people who are familiar with customer satisfaction analysis know that, for every dissatisfied customer that formally expresses some dissatisfaction, you have other dissatisfied customers that won't bother with the feedback and might be looking for alternative suppliers.

There will always be things that are, as Deming put it, unknown and unknowable. We have to deal with the ones we know about.

Customer satisfaction monitoring can be a frustrating activity, because many customers are unwilling to share with suppliers their level of (dis)satisfaction, until a major problem erupts, but totally reactive customer satisfaction process, i.e., focusing solely on complaints, can be a terrible strategy.

I'm not speaking for mguilbert, of course, but we generally have a feeling for when customers are not dissatisfied. Whether that condition equates to satisfaction or just some kind of placid equilibrium is in the details of each case, but in general, customers who keep coming back, and who award new business, are tacitly expressing satisfaction with something.

We are generally, in the eyes of customers, only as good as the last shipment, and cries of dissatisfaction are usually going to be only empirical data we'll have to work with. This doesn't mean that everything must be reactive and focus solely on negatives.

 

[mguilbert]

Dealing with live product that ships worldwide. We try to have our customer send back a questionaire based on DOA, 7 day mortality, chick quality. This questionaire accompanies all shipment domestic and export. It is placed in the delivery packet. If we were dealing with non-live product I guess you could use product damaged in shipment, quality of product (always subjective). But hose may help to be proactive. As you may notice a trend with one shipping clerk, one driver, or freight company seems to be damaging product before youhave a complaint.

 

[howste]

As you can see from the the ISO 9000 text Randy quoted above, measuring satisfaction is not the same as measuring dissatisfaction.

NOTE 1 Customer complaints are a common indicator of low customer satisfaction but their absence does not necessarily imply high customer satisfaction.

In my view, measuring dissatisfaction is only half of the equation, especially if we are just passively waiting for complaints to show up. In ISO 9001, the writers of the standard don't tell us to measure dissatisfaction, they tell us to measure satisfaction. We need to actively seek out our customers' perception of how well we've met their needs - both positive and negative.

 

[kgott]

You should also bear in mind that nearly or organisations have two dimensions of quality. One is service and the other is the product.

I've never found numberising things like customer satisfacion levels attractive.

Management are always attracted to numberising things because its administratively easy. To me its far more fruitful to understand, get a feel for or otherwise learn to 'read' perception of the organisation by the customer as this is where useful information or 'intelligence' and insight into the customers satisfaction drivers comes from, this is where the value of customer feedback comes in.

Sending the customer surveys is the least effective maeans of picking up this kind of information. Surveys only serve the interests of numberised customer satisfaction targets. Above the target, customer satisfaction has been achieved, below the target someone has failed so someone had better watch out.