YDAS

In most of the companies, Customer Satisfaction scores have become an integral part of Key Performance Indices (KPIs). Consequently, vendors, methodologies and outputs are fixed and frozen and any questioning of this practice is considered blasphemous and waste of time. The CSI measures has almost reached the status of accounting metrics which were evolved in sixteenth century and continue to be calculated and reported with the same discipline as hundreds of years back.

Hence, I am acutely aware of the fact that the very title of this article will prompt many to give a short shift to this article and move on . However, I am resolved to make my point because like John Galt in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, I believe ;

“When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit”

So let us begin our questioning process…………….

Monolithic concept:

All the CSM systems treat satisfaction as one single state or a monolithic concept to be expressed as average rating represented by one number.  As against this, in real life, satisfaction consists of at least three different shades namely dissatisfaction, satisfaction and delight.

Some customers having realized importance of delight tried to use top box as the proxy measure for delight and some the arbitrary definition of dissatisfaction (similar to definition of detractor in net promoter score).  There is no science to support these proxy measures for delighted and dissatisfied.

Using Dr. Noriaki Kano’s theory of Two Dimensional Quality, we have developed a scientific basis for development of construct for delight and dissatisfaction.

2. More Granular Satisfaction Measures

You will agree that in advanced stage of satisfaction journey, the improvement in scores is rather slow and difficult to justify as statistically significant.  An additional measure for Delight and Dissatisfaction offers more granularity.   This makes our system is more sensitive to show improvement / or otherwise,  in the advanced stage of quality journey.

Combining emotive component:

Companies practicing Customer Experience Management still use traditional CSM tools for customer feedback. These tools consider highest satisfaction as the best proxy for Delight and lowest satisfaction for Dissatisfaction. While doing this we forget the original definition of satisfaction as an assessment of the experienced emotions. , which means  a true measure for experience should include both cognitive and emotive aspects. The existing CSM tools do not include any emotive component.

Linkage with Business Results:

An Achilles hill for all CSM practioners is the fact that no amount of sophistication in statistical modeling has helped us to establish a robust and  enduring relationship between satisfaction levels and loyalty, advocacy, share of spend.

There have been isolated studies which have established relationships in specific circumstances on an anecdotal basis. But an universal formulation has not been developed despite decades of scholarship.

Consistency:

I am sure you are aware that consistency is as much important as average quality level particularly when it comes to services which are intangible by nature and customer expectations vary considerably from person to person.  Today the only measure for consistency is standard deviation for distribution of rating by various respondents on a particular attribute.  As a result the only strategy is to reduce this spread which results into “over delivery” for some customers ( whose expectations are low ) and “under delivery”  for others (whose expectations are high).  It is high time , we go beyond the narrow confines of long held and least questioned beliefs regarding Quality and satisfaction and look at new definitions of both quality and satisfaction.

The time is ripe for a paradigm shift.