How to make your customers satisfied?
If defined in a less strict manner, Customer Loyalty(CS) is a function of Customer Satisfaction(CS). To achieve CL for improved competitive advantages, enterprises will often resort to increasing CS in their daily operations and management.
It is widely accepted that the (desired) level of CS is decided by Customer Delivered Value, or roughly customer’s perceived value(which means products and services supplied by a company should meet or surpass customer expectation[1]), as well as customer emotion during the entire process of consumption. However, a recent dining experience in the National Day vacation reveals an extra variable in determining the level of CS.
That day was a bit warmer, which, together with the effect of a long trip to Auchan shopping mall, added to the families’ exhaustion. I then led my parents to a plaza nearby to dine so as not to hurry back home and prepare for our lunch. Sometimes multiple-choice is a difficult choice because one has to invest time and energy in picking up the right option. We turned around the plaza, walk across the lane inside it and finally rushed into a small restaurant few meters ahead just before we were fatigued. The dishes were later perceived very delicious and in plenty, more than we all could finish, and we were billed half of what was originally expected.
Of course, we felt satisfied after the meal, with the price and for the lovely waitress. Mom suggested we should come back to this restaurant every two weeks, and this never had happened. She is such a frugal person!
After we drove back, I reviewed the experience of that dining-out. Our satisfaction obviously is not the product of the mere combination of delicious foods, lower expenses and even the eye-catching girl who positively influenced our emotions. It also includes the variable of time, because “time increases focus on product experience, activating time (vs. money) augments one’s personal connection with the product, thereby boosting attitudes and decisions”[2].
Wikipedia (2009), “Customer Satisfaction”, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_satisfaction ↩︎
Mogilner, Cassie and Jennifer Aaker (2009), “The Time vs. Money Effect: Shifting Product Attitudes and Decisions through Personal Connection,” Journal of Consumer Research, 36 (August). ↩︎