Take
Action on Dissatisfaction
Customer service recovery is a key outcome of any customer satisfaction
program. As important as customer satisfaction research is, even
more important is timely action regarding dissatisfied customers.
One way to retain customers is by setting up an action management
system as a component of your customer satisfaction program.
An action management system ensures that customer concerns are
handled in a systematic manner and closure is obtained regarding
customers' issues. Further, complaints are handled in advance of
further undesired behavior, such as negative word-of-mouth.
Immediate action reports are generated when a customer indicates
below average satisfaction on any key indicator. This would include,
for example, assigning a rating below 3 on a five-point scale where
1 is poor and 5 is excellent. Approval from the customer to submit
their name along with their responses is required.
Key indicators of satisfaction are those items that contribute
most to satisfaction. Stated another way, attributes that are most
important to customers are considered to be key indicators of satisfaction.
Efforts to improve customer satisfaction should first focus on
high importance/low satisfaction attributes.
For example, a resort would likely consider attentive housekeeping,
noise level, and comfort of the room among key indicators of satisfaction.
The right customer satisfaction program would identify these attributes,
among others, as key indicators. When a customer rates any of these
attributes below average, or states a complaint regarding a key
indicator, this survey is flagged and a report is generated. To
eliminate duplication of efforts, an immediate action report is
sent to a designated contact person who, in turn, follows up with
the customer within 24 to 48 hours and tracks the status of the
report.
In addition to contact information, immediate action reports contain
a profile of the customer and detailed responses to the survey
questions. In this way, the contact person has as much information
about the customer and his/her complaint(s) as possible.
Action reports may also be triaged, much like the system a medical
emergency room employs. In this manner, displeased customers are
grouped, based on severity, into one of the following categories:
Immediate Action; Service Alert; or Monitor. Of course, you can
assign your own labels and appropriate filters to determine who
falls into each category.
Immediate follow-up is required for all surveys posting a low
rating on one or more key attributes. Less critical are service
alert reports, which indicate low satisfaction on one or more attributes
that are considered to be of lesser importance. These issues should
be acknowledged, but do not require the same urgency as immediate
action reports.
Finally, monitor reports are generated for customers who are satisfied,
yet have suggestions to improve or comment on issues/problems they
may have had that did not negatively impact their satisfaction
scores. These do not necessarily require follow-up, however, they
should be reviewed to pre-empt future customer service issues.
Despite service that may be less than stellar, companies and organizations
can turn a negative into a positive simply by responding to customer
complaints in a timely manner. The outcome may even be satisfaction
that is higher than if there were no complaint to begin with! The
benefits of action management reports and prompt follow-up are
customer satisfaction and retention, which ultimately have a direct,
positive impact on the bottom line. ‡
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