ABSTRACT
One of the fundamental principles of marketing is that an organization can enhance its performance by ensuring that it responds to and satisfies customer needs. This simple idea is at the heart of the service profit chain that was introduced in the previous chapter. In the long run, businesses that fail to deliver customer satisfaction go out of business. Thus, there should be no contradiction between seeking to align the interests of owners and consumers. Problems often seem to occur when attempts are made to satisfy the short-term needs of one group to the detriment of the other. For example, a company might seek to achieve above-trend profit growth by a combination of price increases with cost reductions on the input side (e.g. reducing the number of staff, using less well-trained staff). Product margins might then receive a short-term boost, but competitors and consumers will gradually figure out what is
By the end of this chapter you will be able to: ● understand the nature of customer satisfaction and customer value ● identify the issues associated with measuring and monitoring customer
satisfaction ● understand the importance of fairness in organizations’ interactions with
their customers.
