CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Business Research - Customer Satisfaction



Business Research - Customer Satisfaction

Introduction

Customer satisfaction is a topic of growing concern within organizations. Increasing the level of satisfaction is used as an indicator of the future of the organization (Yuksel, Yuksel & Bilim, 2010). Satisfied customers are willing to pay more for products and services of high quality. Customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of every business: not supplied, not to sell, not to serve, but to satisfy the need that takes the customer to make a deal. Offensive strategies of acquiring new customers are widely used but, in markets with increasing competition, market saturation and low growth rates or even negative, it becomes more difficult to grow due to offensive strategies. The American Marketing Association estimates that acquiring a new customer costs five to six times more than retaining one. In this context, defensive strategies for customer retention become increasingly important.

Studying customer satisfaction and subsequent retention is a tool for the organization to focus on the customer and understand how to manage customer relationships in an effective and efficient. Customer satisfaction is typically determined by factors related to the image, service and product (e.g. price) (Deng, Lu, Wei & Zhang, 2010). The managers of the relationship with the customer face the challenge of making decisions based on a deep knowledge of the customer and avoid skewed visions of reality, usually transmitted by customers very satisfied or dissatisfied, which are a small percentage of the organization's customers, employees sporadic communication, whose vision is determined by its values and interests, and business metrics, whose causes behind in many cases are unexplained or explained on the basis of empirical knowledge and therefore subject to misinterpretation.

The work in the area of customer satisfaction began in 1970, due to increased consumption of products and services. Lowering the quality of services and rising inflation also collaborated and forced many companies to reduce the prices of their products (Kuo, Wu & Deng, 2009). With that, there was the emergence of customer dissatisfaction. With the decrease in the price of products offered, there was also a decline in their quality, so the consumer dissatisfaction arose directly linked to the poor quality of products, driving up the demand for better quality products.

Literature Review

The consumer can identify the product that best meet their needs. Today, the vast majority of companies, is committed to identify what are the needs of each consumer group, being teenagers, young adults and seniors through what the company offers. Recently companies are making available a wide range of products that meets the needs of everyone; thereby generating customer satisfaction at time of purchase. Satisfaction is perceived when you purchase a product or service, through which it will provide to better meet the needs (Lee, Chen & Wu, 2010). Satisfaction consists of feelings of pleasure or disappointment resulting from comparing a product's perceived performance in relation to consumer expectations.

This is undoubtedly the main argument for most executives. The marketing effort to attract new customers, a corporate reality as competitive ...