Effectively Measuring Customer Satisfaction

One of the most common applications of market research involves measuring customer satisfaction. From the American Customer Satisfaction Index, increased customer satisfaction leads to increased consumer spending. For this reason, many companies have been instituting customer satisfaction surveys to try and measure this elusive metric. Customer satisfaction research may also be completed to assess customer expectations for new products or services. If a company is developing a new word processing package, it would be important to know if it must have implemented a thesaurus and spell checking. Another example in manufacturing would be knowing the packaging requirements for a new consumer good. Is a blister pack acceptable, or does it need to be a self-standing carton. Failing to meet these expectations would lead to poor customer satisfaction Another reason why market research on customer satisfaction is completed is for competitive analysis. Toyota automobiles and Dell computers have long lead the competition for customer satisfaction in their respective industries. An automobile manufacturer might want to know in what areas their customers have experienced complete satisfaction so they could improve their own offerings. Loyalty The first measure that is often determined from a survey is loyalty. Loyalty is the probability that a customer will continue to purchase a company's product or service in the future. This is best measured with a projective technique where a person is asked if he or she would recommend the product or service to another person. This removes some of the bias associated with giving a negative answer while accurately determining what the company wants to know. The important aspect of loyalty measurement is the difference between highest score and the rest of the scores. For example, if loyalty is measured on a 10 point scale, there is a tendency to say that everyone answering 5 or greater is loyal, and everyone less than 5 is disloyal. This is fundamentally incorrect. For it is the customers answering 10 who are truly loyal. It is the tens that will continue to purchase and convert other customers through word-of-mouth advertising. For example, the highly competitive airline industry is known for its poor customer loyalty. While many customers will use an airline, almost all have some complaints with their preferred airline. These customers are not truly loyal, because they are themselves looking for better prices or service. Keeping customers loyal and converting existing customers to loyal is one of the best methods companies have for improving profitability. Drivers of Dissatisfaction Customer satisfaction results can also be decomposed to identify the key drivers of dissatisfaction. Oftentimes, companies are providing products or services that the customer does

not want, but the company wants to provide. Maybe it used to be important, but now is not. For many years, consumers wanted IBM compatible computers. A key driver of dissatisfaction was the cost of replacing failed original equipment manufacturing (OEM) components like memory, disk drives, and monitors. Today, the market for personal computers have changed so that personal computer components are interchangeable and the computers themselves disposable. Because the costs are comparable, most people and companies prefer to buy a new personal computer rather than upgrade the old one. The way to measure this property is to ask about overall satisfaction with a company's product or service, and then break out individual sources of dissatisfaction. For example, for an automobile, there would be a single score for the satisfaction of a car, and then individual scores for areas such as price, styling, warranty, noise, and reliability. The individual scores can be correlated to the overall to determine a weighting. For example, if most people are very satisfied with a car are usually dissatisfied with the price, then price does not contribute much, if any, to satisfaction. This could be associated with a luxury car where high prices are as much a selling feature as opposed to a source of dissatisfaction. On the other hand, if many dissatisfied consumers are unhappy with the styling, then this may be the key driver of dissatisfaction for that automobile, such as what happened to the Edsel where styling destroyed an otherwise good automobile. Identifying Future Trends Because statistics and surveys measure the past, it is in the actual comments that future trends can be identified. All surveys should include a section for comments. While these are almost always less in number than the number of respondents and their qualitative nature tends to eschew traditional analysis, comments are usually made by customers who are passionate about a product or service. For example, if the customer satisfaction of a service group indicates high satisfaction levels, but the comments from a few of the respondents indicate a lack of courtesy, then the organization may be losing its customer service focus in a way that is not measurable to the survey, but is apparent to the customers. Conversely, comments may also indicate a source of strength that was previously unknown. If a company is always focusing on the quality of its products, and it turns out that one of its greatest strengths is its ability to help its customers buy the right product, then this temporary advantage could go away with a change in the local management if this is not institutionalized as an advantage. Conclusion In order to effectively measure customer satisfaction, determining loyalty, identifying the drivers of satisfaction/dissatisfaction, and reviewing the comments for trends should be completed. Without knowing what is causing one's success or failure, it is difficult to focus the improvement efforts.

The Ghana Behavior Change Support (BCS) Project is a 4 year United States Agency for International Development (USAID) supported project managed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs (JHU/CCP) with CARE and PLAN International in partnership with the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service (GHS). The overall purpose of the project is to assist the GHS at the national, regional and district levels to support its efforts to achieve health related millennium development goals through sustained and coherent social and behavior change communication (BCC) interventions. BCS aims to increase demand and use of commodities and services and create positive behaviors in the areas of:
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Maternal Neonatal & Child Health Family Planning Malaria Prevention & Treatment Nutrition Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene

The BCS project is audience focused and driven by the community and family level where behavior and norms are formed. The primary focus is on households with children and youth, and the communities they live in, the providers they go to, and the district and national leaders that impact them. The project employs the Communication for Social change model. This aims to blend community, interpersonal, and mass media approaches building synergy around three strategic elements or engines. BCS PLATFORMS
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Addressing a wide spectrum of health topics simultaneously through an integrated approach, Ghana BCS is creating educational and entertaining programs/series that will go on over the duration of the project. Utilizing BCC campaigns to focus on one or two specific health issues at a time with high intensity and limited duration. Working closely with regional, district, & sub-district health teams to build and strengthen the network of local NGOs to undertake effective and synergized community mobilization in both rural and urban settings.

Accomplishments
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Hosting of the GoodLife New Years concert featuring many popular Ghanaian artists including Iwan, Ohemaa Mercy, VIP, 4X4, Castro, Bra Kevin, 2 Toff, Borax, Atsu Koliko and many more. Launch of the National GoodLife campaign on November 25, 2010. Production of GoodLife mass media campaign materials, including billboards, posters, stickers, and TV spots, as well as the Daily GoodLife Guide and GoodLife Quiz. Launch of the Life Choices campaign highlighting demand, supply and quality of services.

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Development of campaign support materials including, press advertorial, flipchart, booklets, brochures, posters, and bumper sticker. Flighting and airing of Life Choices signboards and radio spots throughout all three focus regions. Development of Life Choices TV spot, educating viewers on the various modern contraceptive methods available in Ghana. Design of 5 minute mini-docudramas exploring misconceptions around contraceptive use, male involvement, and unintended pregnancy. Production of a new music video in support of the Life Choices campaign and the original Life Choices song, Life is what you make it. Creation of Family Planning Community Action Kit, which includes the Youth Action Kit, Coach Guides, Teen Passport, and Trigger Sketches.

The term FMCG refers to those retail goods that are generally replaced or fully used up over a short period of days, weeks, or months, and within one year. This contrasts with durable goods or major appliances such as kitchen appliances, which are generally replaced over a period of several years. FMCGs have a short shelf life, either as a result of high consumer demand or because the product deteriorates rapidly. Some FMCGs such as meat, fruits and vegetables, dairy products and baked goods are highly perishable. Other goods such as alcohol, toiletries, pre-packaged foods, soft drinks and cleaning products have high turnover rates. The following are the main characteristics of FMCGs:[1]
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From the consumers' perspective: o Frequent purchase o Low involvement (little or no effort to choose the item -- products with strong brand loyalty are exceptions to this rule) o Low price From the marketers' angle: o High volumes o Low contribution margins o Extensive distribution networks o High stock turnover

Overview
Voices for a Malaria-Free Future (Voices) is a pioneering malaria advocacy project operating in Mali, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, the United States, and at the global partnership level. Funded by the Gates Foundation, Voices works to galvanize governments and partner organizations toward effective malaria control efforts and cultivate malaria champions around the world. Malaria endemic country advocacy emphasizes increased political will, improved policies, stronger management and coordination, while harmonizing with global malaria partnership-building and advocacy in the U.S. for increased malaria funding. Voices leads an integrated, international campaign of advocacy activities to incite and complement advances toward malaria eradication.

Accomplishments
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Voices established a new standard of credibility for malaria advocacy. The malaria community has long been dominated by technical experts who did not value advocacy as a critical tool for progress. Voices built a strong reputation for basing advocacy strategy on evidence, partnership and collaborative discussion. Malaria advocates are now viewed as valuable, essential partners in the fight against malaria, due largely to the work of Voices. Through Voices sustained leadership with the NGO Delegation, Executive Committee, and on key Roll Back Malaria Partnership (RBM) Working Groups, the RBM Partnership and Board have become stronger and more influential over the course of the Voices Project. Important milestones include the creation of two seats for Northern and Southern NGOs, active engagement in the Board by high-level, influential decision makers. In addition, Voices successfully promoted the institutionalization of financial tracking and reporting mechanisms to build accountability and track progress. The Voices project team continues active engagement in the RBM, with the Project Director serving as Vice-Chair of the Partnership Board. Voices team members also chair the Malaria Advocacy Working Group (MAWG) and are key members of the Harmonization Working Group, the Alliance for Malaria Prevention, the Monitoring and Evaluation Reference Group and offer ongoing support to the Sub-Regional Networks of RBM in countries across Africa. U.S. funding for malaria control more than doubled during the Voices project, while overall global funding increased tremendously as well. Voices activities contributed significantly to this achievement, both by its work in the U.S. and with international partners in the MAWG. In Mali, Voices recruited popular Malian musicians as champions in the fight against malaria. These champions spoke out about the need to protect pregnant women and children under five from malaria with the tools available in-country and drew the

attention of the Ministry of Health. As a result, LLINs were delivered to health facilities at the beginning of the rainy season and not left in the central warehouses. Ghanas DMATs greatly improved local participation in malaria control issues, bringing together the health sector, local government, public and the private sector to advocate for the release of the 1% district common fund for malaria. The DMATS conducted malaria needs assessments, developed action plans, and applied funds available to educate local chiefs, and Assembly Members as part of their advocacy work. Some districts have demonstrated improved ITN and ACT access and use.