Customer Satisfaction Research

Customer satisfaction research is conducted to determine the customer's reaction to or feeling about the value received from products or services purchased or provided (usually, but not always, for some type of compensation). Such research usually evaluates a specific product or service offering during or after use, usually through the vehicle of a customer satisfaction survey. Such surveys, using customer satisfaction rating and other evaluative techniques, yield a “report card” of the provider's strengths and weaknesses that the provider can then use to improve the product or service being offered. Customer satisfaction research is used across the spectrum of industries, including a wide array involved in various aspects of health care, from pharmaceutical companies to hospitals, clinics, and private practice, to medical equipment suppliers.

Most customer satisfaction research focuses on product or service attributes or features in terms of their importance or how well the organization performs in delivering them. These attributes or features are measured against what is referred to as a comparison standard, in essence a benchmark for that particular area of the product or service performance. For example, patients of a physician practice, clinic, or emergency room, all have mental benchmarks from past experience and personality characteristics of the individual as to how long is acceptable to be in a waiting room. That time frame is usually a range of acceptability, the comparison standard.

If that range of acceptability is exceeded, the customer experiences what is characterized as negative disconfirmation, or dissatisfaction with that aspect of the service being offered by that particular provider. This dissatisfaction or negative disconfirmation grows greater in direct proportion to the amount by which the comparison standard is exceeded. Conversely, if the range of acceptability is less than the comparison standard, the customer experiences what is referred to as positive disconfirmation, or satisfaction with that aspect of the service offered by that provider. This positive disconfirmation or satisfaction grows greater as that aspect of the product or service improves as contrasted to the comparison standard. If the improvement is truly notable, the customer may experience a phenomenon known as customer delight, in which the product or service, such as waiting room time, is so positively noteworthy that it is truly memorable.

There are several different types of comparison standards that can be used in customer value research. These include expectations (how the user believes the product/service will perform), ideals (how the user wishes the product/service would perform), experience with other competitors in the same product/service category (such as a specific competitive clinic or practice with which a patient has had experience), industry norms (the average or typical performance of competitors in the same product/service category), other competitors in a different product/service category (such as a private practice in contrast to a 24-hour clinic), and marketing promises (whether what is promised in marketing campaigns in areas such as promotion of a clinic is fulfilled by the actual service delivered to the patient).