Using Customer Satisfaction Data to Improve Service Operations

Abstract

In this paper, we relate developments in the measurement of customer satisfaction with advances in the philosophy and techniques of quality improvement. This work lies at the intersection of three distinct parts of a service provider's organizational structure--operations, performance management and quality improvement--and provides a conceptual focus for all three. Consequently, customer satisfaction measurement lies at both the beginning and the end of a customer feedback loop in which satisfaction is related back to operations indicators for service monitoring and service improvements, and these improvements are related forward to customer
reaction in terms of stated satisfaction and behavior. We illustrate the steps of this loop with a number of statistical analyses for residential telephone service. Customer satisfaction is related therein to specific operational perceptions and key company-generated internal measures. In our examples, the differential effect of telephone repair times on satisfaction is shown, and related to the success of a change in repair policy and in the likelihood of repair guarantee invocation.