Measuring Customer and Employee Satisfaction: What is a Smile Worth?

Business Editors

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 24, 2003

World-class companies measure customer and employee satisfaction by surveying regularly, setting quantitative goals for satisfaction and basing managers' incentive pay on survey results, according to a study from

"Best Practices in Customer and Employee Satisfaction Management," available online at http://www3.best-in-class.com/rr137.htm , provides valuable insights for any company seeking to retool its own satisfaction surveys, to drive customer retention or to boost employee morale. The report contains benchmarking data from 14 leading companies across nine industries. In addition to exhaustive benchmarking metrics, the report also includes the actual satisfaction surveys used at top companies.

Survey results reveal that among these world-class participants:

-- 90 percent survey all their customers on at least a yearly

basis

-- 70 percent set quantitative goals for customer satisfaction

-- 64 percent base incentive pay on survey results

"Best Practices in Customer and Employee Satisfaction Management," also shows that the average satisfaction survey has the following characteristics:

-- 35 questions in length

-- Major revision every 7.5 years

-- 7 descriptors to measure the level of satisfaction

"Just about every company has a satisfaction survey, but these surveys are often ineffective because they are rarely answered by customers or because the survey results are not used to drive change in the organization," said Chris James, vice president at Best Practices, LLC. "This report will enable companies to understand what an effective satisfaction survey looks like and enable them to use the survey to enact organizational change."

Download a summary of "Best Practices in Customer and Employee Satisfaction Management" at http://www.benchmarkingreports.com/pr/cs54.htm. For more information about this report or other benchmarking reports, contact David Burton at (919) 767-9259 or at dburton@best-in-class.com.

ABOUT BEST PRACTICES, LLC

Best Practices, LLC is a research and consulting firm that conducts work based on the principle that organizations can chart a course to superior economic performance by studying the best business practices, operating tactics and winning strategies of world-class organizations. For more information, call (919) 403-0251 or visit http://www.best-in-class.com.