You’ve measured the satisfaction level of your customers at two different times and you’ve seen the level increase. Can you conclude that you’ve been making your customers happier?
It’s tempting to conclude “yes” isn’t it? But not so fast… What if, for example, business and consumer sentiment has been improving over the same period because of an improving economy?
What if such sentiment has increased by 10% while your customers’ satisfaction level has increased by 5%? You can do the maths. In that scenario you might actually be hampering your customers’ satisfaction levels.
I thought about this today after I came across a story describing a Dutch study that showed that “teenagers who took part in organized sports had a more positive self image and greater self esteem than teens who weren’t physically active”.
Did their involvement enhance their self image and/or increase their self-esteem? Or are such teenagers simply attracted more to sport than their peers with less positive self image or lesser self esteem?
If you want to know if you are making your customers happier then do these 3 things – in this order: measure, take focussed action and re-measure!