Customer Satisfaction

Oliver defines Customer satisfaction as follows “Satisfaction is the customer fulfillment response. It is a judgment that a product or service feature, or the product or service itself provides a pleasurable level of consumption related fulfillment.”

Satisfaction can be viewed as contentment. Satisfaction may also be associated with some sense of happiness. For those services that really surprise in the positive way, satisfaction may mean delight. And in some situations, where the removal of negative aspect leads to satisfaction, the consumer may associate a sense of relief with satisfaction.

Retention in competitive markets is generally believed to be a product of customer satisfaction. Satisfaction is a psychological process of evaluating perceived performance outcome based on predetermined expectations.

Satisfaction drivers:

Cumby and Barnes suggest that driver exist on five levels and, that these generally involve progressively more personal contact with the service supplier:

1. Core product or service
2. Support service and systems
3. Technical performance
4. Elements of customer interaction
5. Affective dimension of services

1. Core Product or service: this is the basic product or service provided by the company and probably provides the supplier with the least opportunity to differentiate or add value.

2. Support services and systems: These include the peripheral support services that enhance the provision of the core product or services. The customer may well receive an excellent core product or service from the supplier but are dissatisfied with the supplier because of inferior support service and systems.

3. Technical Performance: The level of “customer satisfaction model” deals with whether the service provider gets the core product or whether service and the support services and systems are in place but they do not get them right on every occasion.

4. Elements of customer interaction: This level relates to the way the service provider interacts with the customer either face-to –face or through technology based contact.

5. Affective dimensions of service: Beyond the basic interaction of the company are the messages, sometimes subtle and often unintentional, that companies send to their customers that leave them with positive or negative feelings towards them. A considerable amount of dissatisfaction has nothing to do with core products and services. Indeed the customer may be satisfied with more aspects of interaction. The problem may lie with “little things” that may not be noticed by the staff.

It is quite possible for the supplier to get things right on the first four levels and to dissatisfy the customer because of something that happens on the fifth level. This emphasize the importance of ‘critical episode’ in the exchange process