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Posted by Kent on January 14, 2000 at 09:37:51:
In Reply to: Re: Loyalty and Customer Satisfaction posted by John Taylor on January 13, 2000 at 23:46:15:
I'm going to suggest that a "bank" may not be the best examplar of whether a high
scale rateing for "satisfaction" can translate to "loyalty." The reason is simply that most
bank customers do not "shop" for their day-to-day financial transactions. Further, most
customers don't really understand the complexities of the financial industry enough
to know whether they are, in fact, receiving the most quality. People are not stupid,
they are just under-equipped to evaluate such issues. Loyalty implies repetition for
a product, a service, or an idea. Satisfaction implies that needs, wants, and desires
are met and potentially exceeded. When it comes to financial services, medical
services, or other complex disciplines, the measurement of satisfaction requires more
consideration to the "process" than to the overall "retention." Customer loyalty has been
defined (Jacoby and Chestnut) as: "...a deeply held commitment to rebuy or repatronize
a preferred product or service consistently into the future despite situational influences
and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behavior." This stated
suggests that unless there are sufficient and significant "other" offers which actively
and persuasively influence the customer the customer is not motivated to switch. Rather
than measuring satisfaction (which tend to focus on what and how we do business NOW)
and determining the correlation to loyalty, observe the effect of "other's" marketing
efforts (which acts as a barometer for how we OUGHT to be doing business)
and assess the impact on loyalty.
Subject: