Measuring Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty (Third edition): Survey Design, Use and Statistical Analysis Methods

This book is well written and detailed, full of examples and templates from the author’s years of experience developing surveys for leading companies. The author does a good job of introducing the methodology, giving lists of possible quality dimensions to define how quality is defined in meeting customer expectations, as well as generating “critical incidents” (examples of organizational performance from the customers’ perspective) before setting out on questionnaire development or customer sampling. The book does a good job of explaining reliability and validity in the context of customer perception and attitude, with an overview of classical measurement theory and sources of errors. The author devotes a chapter to NPS and its criticisms, showing how problems arise in the measurement and meaning of customer loyalty, for example, indicating how the NPS falls short by showing how non-detractors of wireless service providers are sometimes still likely (over 30%) to switch to other providers. The section on using customer satisfaction questionnaires gives multiple examples of surveys from different industries, along with data results and analysis.

This book contains extensive information for development of surveys and analysis of data, however it could use more information through examples and cases of implementation and ongoing process management issues. For more on the subject, see CRM at the Speed of Light.

The third edition of this best-seller updates its detailed information about how to construct, evaluate, and use questionnaires, and adds an entirely new chapter on customer loyalty. Included are two different methods of sampling and determining an appropriate sample size for reliable results; the reliability and validity of results; real examples of customer satisfaction measures and how they can be used; guidelines for developing questionnaires; scale development; the concept of quality; frequencies; sampling error; two methods of determining important service or product characteristics as perceived by the customer; discussion on the measurement and meaning of customer loyalty, and methods for loyalty-based management. Readers will gain a sound grasp of the scientific methodology used to construct and use questionnaires utilizing the author’s systematic approach. They will be able to pinpoint and focus on the most relevant topics, and study both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of questionnaire design and evaluation. These and many more important scientific principles are presented in simple, understandable terms.

This book is a comprehensive study in how to design and use customer satisfaction and loyalty surveys, with in-depth examples for determining customer requirements, reliability and validity of data and different sampling methods. It contains useful appendices with critical incidents interview forms, satisfaction items and customer requirement forms, measurement scales, statistics, parameters and sampling distributions. It is useful for both the design of surveys and use of the information for delivering customer satisfaction improvements. This book will be of interested to any market research professional as well as managers seeking to understand customers satisfaction measurement techniques.