Don't grow complacent when Your customers are 'satisfied'
by Kelly Shermach Staff Writer After years of trying to do the right thing and satisfy customers, marketers have a new philosophy to ponder: A satisified customer means trouble.    That ironic situation occurs as a result of bad customer satisfaction research, according to Barry Maners,director of the research division at Matrixx Marketing Inc., Indianapolis.    Research that measures only customer satisfaction gives companies a false sense of security, he said.    Such research may satisfy top execs, but it doesn't mean the organization will retain customers or bring in new ones, he said. A focus just on satisfaction means a company is "not getting a clear direction on customer behavior, only getting a piece of the puzzle," he said. "If all they're doing is measuring they'd be better off not spending the money....Where the rubber really meets the road is do you know what to do with the information?"    What's needed, he said, is "customer value management," which measures quality, costs of product or service acquistion and usage, and image in the marketplace. copywrite © 1996 by the American Marketing Association 250 Wacker Dr. Chicago, Il. 60606-5819 U.S.A.	The problem with standard research, Maners said, is that it only considers the company the customer currently does business with; it measures what customers are receiving. That's why customers may say they're satisfied with the company's product, yet they turn around and defect to the competition. Customer value management relies on research that includes questions about a company's competition; what customers could receive.    Quality is a better predictor than satisfaction of a customer's willingness to keep buying a company's product, Maners said, and costs must he competitive or better for customers to keep coming back. Image in the market also is a factor in customer satisfaction. In the l95Os, Maners said, "made in Japan" translated to "junk." Now it means excellence.    "Essential enterprise components," the functions that have the greatest effects on the business' image in the customer's eye, need to be assessed, he said,	including shipping, delivery, and billing because they influence service.    The goal is to get a full picture of a company's strengths and weaknesses and then to take action accordingly.    "Customer service measurement needs to be used as a tool to promote action and change in an organization," he said.    A Chicago researcher believes that scoring high in two critical satisfaction areas will help a company keep its customers.    Those areas, said Cliff Knowles, president of TeleSight, are satisfaction with the product or service ("this thing works, and I paid a fair price for it") and the experience of obtaining the product or service ("the softer side of issues").    If a company rates high on both aspects of satisfaction, its customers are not likely to go elsewhere, Knowles said. Central to this faith is his trust in consumers.    "Customers are very articulate," he said, and have an excellent ability to tell researchers what they need and want.    "The issue is to find out whether you're in the top box," he said.    What you want to accomplish initially is an accurate description of your customers, a very specific picture of what they like and	dislike about your products and services," he said. "This picture shows you how big a gap there is between what you're offering and what will keep customers satisfied. That gap creates an opportunity for your competitors to steal your customers. Your goal then is to narrow that gap and keep narrowing it."    The marketplace is incredibly fluid, he said. That's why he believes companies ought to talk to their customers as often as conditions in a particular industry demand, even if a recent study indicates that most customers are happy. Otherwise entropy sets in.    The newest challenges in satisfying customers, he said, stem from more competition, increased ways to get products to consumers' homes, lifestyle changes, expectations of speed in delivery and quality in merchandise, and consumers' desire to be recognized as individuals.    "Customers want retailers to know something about the way they shop and what they shop for, [to] build relationships, no matter what," Knowles said.    They challenge both retailers and business-to-business marketers to "know me better so that you can understand me and the products I need," he said.    Whether a company accepts that challenge says something about its management.    "An extremely well-run company,"Knowles said, "has a dynamic that pushes it to continually improve its marketing processes." TeleSight can be reached at (312)-640-2504