Best Practices in Customer Satisfaction

Best Practices in Customer Satisfaction With quality management philosophies that are considered customer-centric such as Kaizen and the Deming Total Quality Management (TQM), quality cannot be reached without the “voice of the customer” (VOC) being heard. Satisfying internal and external customers is the root of quality. Companies that continuously strive for satisfaction with their clients use tools such as the Kano model of customer satisfaction or get ISO 9000 certified (Evans & Lindsay, 2010). Any industry that has been around for a while develops a set of “best practices,” processes that have proven themselves over time. This essay looks at some of methods used by companies to attain satisfaction, reasons for doing so, and how Maggiano’s restaurants incorporates them into their business. Customer and stakeholder satisfaction is the first of the three principles behind Deming’s’ TQM philosophy. Customer engagement and knowledge acquisition is one of the six major areas that most companies focus on when trying to implement quality with TQM. The first principle in ISO 9000 quality management is customer focus. The Baldridge concept of performance excellence states a need for processes to determine a customer’s needs as the first point to. With so many different quality practices putting customer satisfaction as a priority, it is obvious to see the importance of determining what the best methods are. Acquiring this knowledge is important and many companies use methods to gather it such as surveys and the Kano model to classify their findings (Evans & Lindsay, 2010). Using surveys to gather data from consumers is not as straightforward as just asking questions. Eileen Von Aken, an associate professor from Virginia Tech, outlines seven steps to creating an effective survey. She has noticed that many companies fall short when trying to develop surveys that achieve the desired results. The first step is to properly identify the purpose of the survey, what data is needed and what decision processes are affected by them. After all, you cannot reach a destination if you don’t know what it is. Professor Aken also advocates defining which elements and sub elements should be measured before the third step, designing the survey. When designing the survey, attention should be given to the actual questions, the order they are in, different categories and response categories such as 1 (very dissatisfied) and 5(very satisfied or excited). Step four involves determining the method of delivery such as on a customer receipt, and how often it should be used. The final three steps are to design the sampling plan and what types of demographics are targeted and which questions are meant for all and what is meant to be segmented, designing the analysis and portrayal methods, and finally determining the review process. Designing the review process is very important, understanding the feedback is critical to success (Van Aken, 2008). Engagement of the customer also helps promote more feedback. The Kentucky Cabinet for Families and Children (CFC) initiated a system to engage their customers through mail contact in September of 2001. The approach included focus on distribution, segmentation and analysis of results, within a structured process that is repeatable. CFC wanted more results to provide a better sampling of data. To achieve this, they used three main goals connected to methods they can use to reach those goals. They initiated a rewards system, made it socially anonymous and user friendly, and provided a phone contact number for questions to promote trust (Hubner et al, 2002). The CFC used a structured, defined system, and can be considered a best practice when gathering data required to provide customer satisfaction. Another best practice in surveys is to make sure the survey is tailored to an organization. A restaurant and music distributer would require different questions to determine what drives satisfaction up in their consumer base, though some music lovers may also be avid restaurant lovers (Proctor, 2009). When data is targeted to a company needs, is properly segmented and analyzed, and is in sufficient size, then it becomes easier to understand a clients needs. Once those needs are fully understood products or services can be tailored to consumers and provide better chances for achieving customer satisfaction. Maggiano’s uses several customer-centric methods to attain quality. In 1995 a small company called “Lettuce Entertain You,” sold Maggianos, an Italian semi-fine dining restaurant, to Brinker international which is the owner of the widely known Chili’s restaurants (Brinker, 2009). Brinker was able to capture their consumer VOC through surveys and manager contact with guests. They try to have servers point out the guest satisfaction survey to every guest and manage to gain enough responses to analyze their data. Customers are encouraged with rewards like free desserts or gift cards for participation mush like the rewards system implemented by the CFC. Brinker continuously analyzes and re-analyzes their survey results which can be seen in the minor changes the restaurant incorporates. There are now over 42 Maggianos restaurants around the United States (Brinker, 2009). If they were not using best practices for understanding and achieving customer satisfaction then this might not be sustainable. Customer satisfaction is important to strive for. Customers are the source of profit, when you create satisfied customers you can compete with other companies. Satisfaction is only so much, to generate life long customers you need to deliver the exciter/delighters from the Kano model. Whatever the goal, customer satisfaction drives success in companies. This is most likely the reason for the success of Brinker restaurants like Maggianos; they use best practices of finding out their customer wants and methods to obtain that data (Evans &Lindsay, 2010).

References
Brinker Intl. (2009) Our story. Retrived May 20th 2011 From http://www.brinker.com/company/ourstory.asp
Evans, J. & Lindsay, W. (2008). Managing for quality and performance excellence 8th Ed South-Western Cengage Learning. Mason, OH.
Hubner, R. A., Et Al (2002). Customer satisfaction. State Government News, 45(5), 24.
Retrieved May 20th, 2011 from EBSCOhost.
Proctor, K(2009). Measuring customer satisfaction in a survey. Retrieved May21st, 2011
From http://www.suite101.com/content/measuring-customer-satisfaction-in-a-survey-a171556
Van Aken, E. (2008). CUSTOMER SATISFACTION MEASUREMENT.
Industrial Management, 50(6), 9. Retrieved May 20th, 2011 from EBSCOhost
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