Customer Satisfaction

Introduction

Customer satisfaction is a part of quality management practices that is critical toward the successful of an organization. Customer satisfaction can be considered the essence of success in today’s highly competitive world of business (Ahmad Jamal, Kamal Naser, 2002).Customer satisfaction, a business term, is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. (Wikipedia, 2008). (Gaw. 2008) said customer satisfaction represents a set of business processes touching on all aspects of the company. Customer satisfaction is a great deal more than the clichés "getting close to customers" and the motto "the customer is always right". Customer satisfaction is increasingly considered as a baseline standard of performance and a possible standard of excellence for any business organization (Mihelis et al.,2001).

According to Keiningham and Munn (2003) Customer satisfaction is related to action taken by to the repurchases the products and positively affected business results. In contrast customer defection was a result of poor customer relationship management- customers shifts their business to other firms. Furthermore, Customer satisfaction is not simply dependent on the marketeers, sales or point of sales personnel or the customer experience. It's more fundamental, requiring an organisation to make enough to meet customer needs (Luck, 2006).

2.1 Definition of Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction has traditionally been one of the core areas in marketing in business and academic world (Tikkanen, AlajoutsijärviA, 2002). In business term, it is defined as a measurement of how products and services supplied by a company meet or customer expectation. It is currently seen as a key performance indicator within the business. Every company nowadays must be able to satisfy and retain customers. That is the key to its business performance. One way how to develop customer satisfaction is how we as marketer of our company to collect, analyze, or use customer data to improve quality, satisfaction, and retention. Whatever it is, customer satisfaction and retention are our responsibility.

In terms of definition of customer satisfaction, there are many scholars give explanation about customer satisfaction. According to Hancock (2007), he explains customer satisfaction can help our business achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. It about understands the way a customer feels after purchasing a product or service and, in particular, whether or not that product or service met the customer's expectations.

Customers primarily form their expectations through past purchasing experiences, word-of-mouth from family, friends and colleagues and information delivered through marketing activities, such as advertising or public relations. If the customer's expectation is not met, they will be dissatisfied and it's very likely they will tell others about their experience.

In Wikipedia, it explains customer satisfaction as a business term, that measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. It is seen as a key performance indicator within business and is part of the four perspectives of a balanced scorecard. Customer satisfaction is seen as a key differentiator and increasingly has become a key element of business strategy in a competitive marketplace where businesses compete for customers.

While according to American Marketing Association (2008), customer satisfaction is the degree to which there is match between the customer’s expectations of the product and the actual performance of the product. Expectations are formed based on information consumers receive from salespersons, friends, family, opinion leaders, and so on as well as past experience with the product. This is an important measure of the ability of a firm to successfully meet the needs of its customer.On flight deck, they give explanation almost similar with other. But here gives formula where as:

Satisfaction = Customer Service Definition – Good Customer Services
Where, The Definition of Good Customer Service = Having happy customers (and improved sales).means, bringing out customer happiness by providing them a good service will increase their . According to the many business guru's and to many more successful companies, the key to success lies not only in having a good product, but also in being able to provide the customer with the level of service they desire.
Line with Glossary or marketing Communication Terminology, customer satisfaction means the provision of goods or services which fulfill the customer's expectations in terms of quality and service, in relation to price paid.
According to Nasser Alomain,Mustafa Zihni,Mohamed Zairi, (2003), customer satisfaction is the reason for total quality management. However, customer satisfaction initially involves customer focus. According to Evans and Lindsay (2001), customer focus addresses how an organization determines current and emerging customer requirements and expectations, as well as customer satisfaction.In order to satisfy customers, achieve higher customer satisfaction than the competitors, retain customers in the long run and gain market share, the business must deliver ever improving value to its customer.

Customer satisfaction is an ambiguous and abstract concept and the actual manifestation of the state of satisfaction will vary from person to person and product/service to product/service. The level of satisfaction can also vary depending on other options the customer may have and other products against which the customer can compare the organization's products.


According to Newman (2001) customer satisfaction is the result of the buyers’ perception of service quality and satisfaction leads to customers’ retention, which leads to repeat purchase and increased scope for relationship building and word of mouth recommendation.

2.2 Critique of Customer satisfaction Model
The most important asset of any organization is its customers. An organization’s success depends on how many customers it has, how much they buy, and how often they buy. Satisfied customers will increase, buy more, and buy more frequently. It is similar what customers’ experiences with Proton Service Centre at Batu Caves. They more frequently consume the services they more they get flaying satisfaction.
Total Quality Management (TQM) implies an organizational obsession with meeting or exceeding customer expectations, to the point that customers are delighted. Understanding the customer’s needs and expectations is essential to winning new business and keeping existing business. The organization such as Proton Service Centre must give its customers a quality product or service that meets their want and needs at reasonable price, which includes on-time delivery and outstanding service.

Customer satisfaction can also be expressed in both specific and general terms and can be bet represented in a “satisfaction pyramid” (Marr, 1986) as cited in Lee, 1999, as shown in figure 2 above. This pyramid shows different levels of the company’s operation at which customer satisfaction can be affected, including the macro and micro components. The macro components are components surrounding the products such as billing, repairs, operator service and transmission, whereas the micro components are the actual product attributes. Marr’s model also points out that the customer’s satisfaction not only hinges on external factors such as customer’s perception, but also on specific internal activities that affect and linked to the external judgment of customers. This model serves as a good basis for designing a suitable customer satisfaction model for the airline industry as it also includes external forces contributing to customer satisfaction such as price, on time schedules, comfortable and services.
Although customers’ satisfaction is important, it is not equally important to the company. There
are many customers whose satisfaction is less important, such as those a company cannot serve or who are unprofitable, on the other hand , there are customers’ survival, and the goal should always be to satisfy those customers, Bhote, 1996 (as cited in Hanssemark and Albinson, 2004).

2.3. Customer Perception of Quality
Continuous process improvement is one of the basic concepts of the TQM. This is because the customer’s needs, values, and expectation are always changing and becoming more demanding.
According to Besterfield (1999), explain that an American Society for Quality (ASQ) survey on end user perception of important factors that influenced purchases showed the following ranking:
1. Performance
2. Features
3. Services
4. Warranty
5. Price
6. Reputation

Those are factors are important but two of them such as product quality and service are more important and strong affect rather than price. In terms of performance that most of the time, indicates that the product and service is ready for the customer’s use at the time of sale. Features are secondary characteristics of the products or service. Whereas, service here is one method that organization use to give and serve the customer added value. The product warranty represents an organization’s public promise of quality product backed up by a guarantee of customer satisfaction. The customers are willing to pay a higher price if the services and products of the company are very high value and full fill up their needs. Lastly is reputation where total customer satisfaction is based on the entire experience with the organization, not only the product.


2.4. Customer Feedback and Complaints

The organization must be aware toward continuous monitoring and soliciting to customer changes, this will lead back to customer feedback of company’s services and products. According to Besterfield (2001), feedback is important because it enables the organization to; discover customer dissatisfaction, discover relative priorities of quality, compare performance with the competition, identity customers’ needs, and determine opportunities for improvement.
Using customers’ complaint as customer dissatisfaction becomes a primary measure to assess their process improvement efforts. In the reality the customer is giving the organization a second chance. There are many advantages of customers’ complaints especially as opportunity to obtain information to provide better service to customer.

2.5. The Important of customer satisfaction

Hancock (2007) explains that monitoring customer satisfaction is important because we are likely to tell our friends and family about a bad experience with a product or service than a good experience. A high level of satisfaction can delivery many benefits such as; loyalty, repeat purchase, referrals, retention, reduce costs, and premium prices.
According to Ingrid Feciková (2004), customer satisfaction has become an important issue for commercial and public service organisations. Companies win or lose based on what percentage of their customers they can keep. Success is largely about retention of customers, which again depends on customer satisfaction level. It would be a great help to be able to comprehensively measure the quality of product and service, by relating the measures of quality to real customer behaviour.

2.6. Consumer Perception and Behaviour

Moutinho and Smith (2000) have founded in their research that there is evidence in the literature that consumers’ perceived service quality and satisfaction are related to customer retention and profitability, although the relationships between these are by no means fully established. The customers always develop perceptions during the service delivery process and subsequently they compare their perceptions to their expectation in evaluating the outcome of the service encounter. Customers' expectations are key determinants of their consumption experiences, satisfaction, and loyalty (Ofir, Chezy; Simonson, Itamar, 2005). According to Teas (2003), both the perception and expectation of a customer towards a service quality is important in determining the loyalty of the customer, which in turn also affect the choices that these customer may make

2.7. Service Loyalty, Quality and satisfaction

Product-related or brand loyalty is what the loyalty has focused on. While loyalty to service organizations has remained underexposed, those are as Gremler and Brown explained (as cited in Bloemer, Ruyter and Peeters’ research, 1998). There is high positive correlation between the constructs of satisfaction and quality and product loyalty. However, in creating product loyalty and satisfy customer needs, the company must emphasizing on customer relationship management. (Ishak, Mutum, Cheong, 2006). In order to maintain a customer relationship, the services provided by the firm should make the other arty feel important and wanting to stay in that business relationship (Laplaca, 2004)

Furthermore, Bloemer, Ruyter and Peeters (1998) said that loyalty is more prevalent among service customers, than among customers of tangible products. Therefore, service quality and satisfaction have both been advanced as antecedents of service quality..In addition to service quality and satisfaction, image is also an important determinant of customer patronage, where image is reflecting a customer’s overall impression. Image and loyalty is mediated by customer evaluative judgments such as quality perceptions.

In conclusion, customer satisfaction tends involved people in the organization and outside organization as well that give impact on the organization performance and perception of the customers.

REFERENCES
American Marketing Association (2008), Dictionary of Marketing Terms. Copyright @2008 MarketingPower, Inc. http://www.marketingpower.com/mg-dictionary-view930.php.

Ahmad Jamal, Kamal Naser (2002), Customer satisfaction and retail banking: an assessment of some of the key antecedents of customer satisfaction in retail banking, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Volume: 20 Issue: 4 Page: 146 - 160

Besterfield, D.H, Carol, B.M, Glen, H. B, Mary, B.S (2001), Total Quality Management, 3rd Edition, Prentice-Hall, Inc. Simon & Schuster/A Viacom Company, New Jersey. U.S

Evans,J.R and Lindsay, W.M (2001), The Management and Control Quality, 5th ed.,West Publishing, St Paul,MN.

Flighdeck. Customer Service Definition - Good = Satisfaction, Flightdeck® CRM by Software Sculptors. http://www.flightdeckcrm.co.uk/customer-service-definition.aspx

Gaw, B. (2008), Customer Satisfaction Article, Business Basic, LLChttp://bbasicsllc.com/customer.satisfaction.article.htm

Hansemark, O.C and Albinson, M (2004). Customer Satisfaction and Retention: the experience of individual employees. Managing Service Quality, Volume 14, No. 1-2004- pp. 40-57. The Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Hancock, R (2007). Customer Satisfaction, Published on March 2007. Http://www.netregistry.com.au/news/articles/194/1/Customer-Satisfaction/Page1.html

Henrikki Tikkanen, Kimmo Alajoutsijärvi (2002) Customer satisfaction in industrial markets: opening up the concept Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Volume: 17, Issue: 1 Page: 25 - 42

Ingrid Feciková, (2004), An Index Method For Measurement Of Customer Satisfaction The TQM Magazine, Volume: 16 Issue:1 Page:57 - 66 Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Keiningham, T.L. and Munn, T.P, (2003). The Impact of Customer Satisfaction on Share-of-Wallet in a Business-to-Business Environment, Journal of Science Research. Volume 6, No. I, August 2003,
pp. 37-50

Kenneth R Teas (1993). Expectations, performance, evaluation & consumers perception of quality. Journal of marketing Vol. 57, Page 18 -34

Luck, G. (2006). Customer Satisfaction Strategy. The Ashridge Journal. Autumn 2006 www.ashridge.com/360

Lee, A.T.E (1999), Customer Satisfaction in the Malaysian Cellular Phone Network Industry: an Exploratory Study. IIUM Thesis, Management Centre.

MHS Marketing Group, Customer Satisfaction, Glossary of Marketing Communications Terminology PO Box 1260 - 333 Washington St. • Keene, New Hampshire 03431-1260info@mshmgi.com http://www.mshmgi.com/glossary,C,Customer+Satisfaction.html

Mihelis, G., Grigoroudis, E., Siskos, Y., Politis, Y. and Malandrakis, Y. (2001), Customer Satisfaction Measurement In The Private Bank Sector, European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 130 No. 2,
pp. 347-60.

Newman, K (2001), Interrogating SERVQUAL: A Critical Assessment Of Service Quality Measurement In High Street Retail Bank. International Journal of Bank Marketing 19/3 (2001), 126-139.MCB university Press. The Emerald Research.

Nasser Alomain,Mustafa Zihni,Mohamed Zairi, (2003), Customer Satisfaction@Virtual Organisation, Management Decision Journal, Volume 41, Issue 7, Page 666-670
Nor Khomar Ishak, Dilip Mutum & Cheong Khai Fan,(2006), CRM Implementation by Malaysian Automobile Distributors, Advances in Global Business Research, Vol. 3 No. 1
Ofir, Chezy; Simonson, Itamar.(2005) The Effect of Stating Expectations on Customer Satisfaction and Shopping Experience. Stanford University, Graduate School of Business, Research Papers..

Peter J. Laplaca, (2004). Customer Relationship Management. Journals of Industrial Marketing Management., Issue 33, Page: 463 -484.

Rebekah Bennett, Sharyn Rundle-Thiele,(2004) Customer Satisfaction Should Not Be The Only Goal, Journal of Service Marketing, Volume 18, Issue 7 Page 514 -523