Satisfying customers

Focusing on the consumer role
Emphasizing the consumer's role
Reinforcing adult customer involvement

Description

Satisfying customers involves consistently meeting or exceeding customer expectations through reliable products, responsive service, and effective problem resolution. This strategy focuses on understanding customer needs, promptly addressing complaints, and ensuring quality at every interaction. Its practical intent is to build trust, foster loyalty, and reduce dissatisfaction, thereby remedying issues such as customer attrition, negative word-of-mouth, and declining sales by creating positive, solution-oriented experiences that encourage repeat business and long-term relationships.

Implementation

All in-patients at the University of Washington Medical Centre, USA are supplied with "were you satisfied" questionnaires. A similar questionnaire is sent out to randomly selected out-patients and casualty patients. The survey asks, for instance, how satisfied the patient was with the courtesy of admitting staff and with the doctor's ability to listen and answer the patient's questions. It also asks whether nurses introduced themselves at the start of each shift, and whether staff treated the patients as they would have liked to be treated themselves. The hospital won the Medical Social Inventions Award 1993 of the Institute for Social Inventions.