Measuring customers satisfaction - Research Paper Example

The importance of customer satisfaction is that loyal customers are more likely to come back to the same business and this improves the profitability of the company due to increased sales which comes from loyal customers (Tarasi, Bolton, Gustafasson and Walker, 2012). They are likely to come back even if the price is lower on the competitor’s side due to satisfaction they get from their supplier. The loyal customers are likely to recommend to their friends about the satisfaction they get from their supplier hence increasing the customer base of a business leading to realization of more profits.

Acquiring a new customer is 20 times harder than maintaining a customer hence its prudent and costly for a business to look into ways of acquiring new customers (Tunner, 2012). Measuring customer satisfaction using American Customer Satisfaction Model (ACSM) This is a cause and effect model with indices for drivers of satisfaction on the left side, satisfaction in the centre and outcome resulting from satisfaction on the right side and both are weighed with several questions within a model. The drivers of customer satisfaction include customer expectation together with perceived quality and perceived values, which are important aspects in measuring customer satisfaction.

The questions assesscustomer evaluations of the determinants of each index which are reported on 0 to 100 scales depending on various ways the customer responds in relation to goods and services from the company. The figure below represents the ACSI Model Adopted from http://www.theacsi.org/the-american-customer-satisfaction-index From the above figure, it can be deduced that ACSI has three important component that determine its measurements and they are perceived quality, perceived value and customer expectations.

Customer expectation measures customer anticipation of the quality of a company’s product and services and it represents prior consumption experience and a forecast of company’s ability to deliver high quality products in future. The customer’s complaints are measured as a percentage of the respondents who complain and this is used to gauge the various responses in customer satisfaction index (Angelova and Zekiri, 2011). Measuring customer expectation using King County Method This plan establishes three cross cutting guidelines that relate the customer satisfaction, need and the need to improve services in response to customers.

This method id service oriented, results focused and innovative in the way that learning from experiences ambles seeking of new results. This method of customer satisfaction focuses on customers, employees and managers hence informing opportunities for general improvements (King County, 2013). The following diagram represents King County Process of Customer Satisfaction measurement Adopted from www.kingcounty.gov Types of industries There are various types of industries on the type of services they provide to their customers over time.

Primary industries are concerned with reproduction of goods and are nature oriented industry since they require very little human effort. Manufacturing industries are engaged in transforming raw materials into finished products by the used of machines combined with manpower in a highly specialized environment. Service industries are co