A typical business customer satisfaction index is shown at right. If the satisfied and completely satisfied customers total 81%, should the directors of this company be content? Should a business concentrate its resources on increasing the satisfaction of the very dissatisfied customers or try to raise the merely satisfied customer to a completely satisfied level?
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A customer satisfaction study by Xerox Corporation found that customers who were completely satisfied were
six times more likely to repurchase a Xerox product than those that were merely
satisfied. Furthermore, other studies have shown that it is far cheaper to raise the customer with a satisfaction index of from between 3.5 to 4.5 to a 5 than a very dissatisfied customer to a higher level. (Harvard Business Review,
Nov-Dec, 1995). Many businesses spend a disproportionate amount of resources on a small percentage of customers that are almost impossible to please. Pursuing these customers also may hurt company morale and will disparage the company to other potential customers.
What impact does this have on your endodontic practice? Referring doctors and patients who enjoy complete satisfaction with your services are more likely to be loyal "apostles" of your practice than those who are just satisfied.
This relationship is called the
"satisfaction-loyalty link." One way
to measure the satisfaction of your
referring doctors and patients is to
use a satisfaction survey. This tool
can point out areas that you can
improve, such as front desk
operations, office hours, parking
etc.
We have surveyed every patient
since for many
years and have
found the data to be very helpful in
fine tuning our service. A guide to
creating a survey is available from
the American Dental Association,
Order Department at 800-947-4746 (7
am-6 pm CST).
Once you have identified areas that need corrective action, be prepared to create an action plan to fix the problem. Remember, a problem exists if a referring doctor or a patient perceives a problem. Problems can be fixed and loyalty maintained if the problem is fixed quickly. It has been shown that 95% of customers will repurchase if the problem is fixed on the spot, and 78% of customers will repurchase if the problem is fixed within 24 hours.
Additional
resources:
Some great
customer service articles are
available for further reading at:
www.attractandkeepcustomers.com
www.smartbiz.com
To access the customer
service articles,
perform a search under "customer
service" or use the
"categories" selection from the menu.
