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.What additional products or services might you sell toyour existing customers?4.How can you increase the average size of each sale?5.What would you have to do to justify a price increasein the minds of your customers?6.How could you increase the profitability of each sale?7.What actions do you commit to take immediately asa result of insights gained in this chapter?  I want this team to win;I m obsessed with winning,with discipline, with achieving.That s what this country is all about. GEORGE STEINBRENNERThis page intentionally left blankCHAPTER 16Four Levels of CustomerSatisfaction  It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man cansincerely try to help another without helping himself. RALPH WALDO EMERSONAre you aware of the four levels of customer satisfaction?YES NOAre you committed to analyzing your levels of customer satisfaction andfinding ways to improve them, with the goal of dramatically increasingboth customer loyalty and your level of referrals? YES NO.This chapter examines the critical connection between customerexpectations and customer satisfaction.Learn the differences be-tween meeting and exceeding customer expectations and what itmeans to delight and amaze your customers.The Application Ex-ercise at the end of the chapter highlights ways to analyze andstrengthen your approach to customer expectations and posi-tions your organization or business to make significantstrides in this area.129This page intentionally left blankIF SALES ARE THE ENGINE that drives your business (seeChapter 15), then customer satisfaction is the fuel.Your abil-ity to satisfy your customers is the critical determinant ofyour success in driving sales and growing your business.Perhaps the worst enemy of any relationship be it be-tween two friends, husband and wife, parent and child, em-ployer and employee, or a business and its customer isunmet expectations.Have you ever been surprised to come home to an un-happy spouse, or been caught off guard by a disgruntled em-ployee, and been totally oblivious to the cause of the upset?Have you experienced the wrath of an angry customer andbeen at a loss as to what went wrong? You re not alone.SuchTurboCoach132experiences are common.What few people understand isthat very frequently, the displeasure of the spouse or em-ployee or customer was rooted in another person not meet-ing some expectation an expectation that they had failed torecognize.At the very least, such unmet expectations resultin friction.At worst, they can end the relationship.The Four Levels ofCustomer SatisfactionThere are four levels of customer satisfaction, all based onthe degree to which you meet customer expectations.Thehigher the level you achieve, the more you will build cus-tomer loyalty and the greater will be your success.Meet Customer ExpectationsThe minimum requirement to simply stay in business tosurvive is to meet the expectations of your customers.Atthis level, your customers have no complaints.They are satis-fied for the moment.But they are not loyal.If a competitordemonstrates that it can and will do more than merely meettheir expectations, your customers will very quickly becomeex-customers.Moreover, if you fail to meet their expecta-tions, perhaps only one time, they will leave and find some-one else who will.It can be instructive to observe your local merchantstrue entrepreneurs.One of our clients shared the followingexperience.There are four dry cleaners in her neighborhood, and forseveral years she had frequented one exclusively.Twice aFour Levels of Customer Satisfaction133week, she would drop off her family s cleaning in the morn-ing and pick it up that evening.Although there were frequentchanges in personnel, with some employees friendlier thanothers, her clothes were always ready the same day.As abusy working wife and mother, this was important to herand, although she often received flyers from other dry clean-ers offering cheaper service, she felt no compulsion to eventry them out.Once when she stopped in to pick up her clean-ing at the end of a hectic day, the proprietor explained theyhad been very busy and her clothes would not be ready untilthe next day.She said nothing but, on the way home, shestopped at a nearby competitor and asked if they had same-day service.They did, and that was all it took for her toswitch.She picked up her clothes at her old dry cleaner thefollowing evening and never returned.Over the years, shehad come to expect same-day service.All it took was a singleexperience of unmet expectations for her dry cleaner to losea valuable customer.What do your customers expect of you? You should bevery clear about this.And you must make every effort to atleast meet these expectations.Exceed Customer ExpectationsThis higher level of customer satisfaction is reached by sur-prising your customers, going beyond what they expected.Fast, friendly service, followed up by a phone call to makesure everything is all right, might put you into this category.So does a product or service that is a cut above that of yourcompetitors.Another client shared the following story.As a youngster,he joined his father every Saturday in what became a father-TurboCoach134son ritual.Early in the morning, before the rest of the familyawoke, they drove across town and picked up a dozendoughnuts, a treat that they relished.As he grew older, henoticed that they drove past several doughnut shops, but al-ways added several miles to their trip to go to the same shop.When he asked his father why they didn t buy from a shopcloser to home after all, he reasoned, doughnuts are dough-nuts, regardless of where you buy them his dad explainedthat his favorite shop had a practice of adding an extra freedoughnut to the box each time they purchased a dozen (alsoknown as   a baker s dozen  ).Our client somewhat sheep-ishly shared that the ritual has been passed to the next gener-ation [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]