.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} One of the main reasons “customer satisfaction” is a meaningless term is that it’s not predictable, let alone measurable, as it relates to business growth.

Right about now, all customer satisfaction people, from marketing to award companies, are writing me off as a “know-nothing” who has no concept of business. “You MUST have satisfied customers or you can’t build a business.”

Wrong. “Satisfied” is the LOWEST level of acceptable customer service. For example, hotel managers can guarantee satisfaction because they can easily fix what’s wrong. But they won’t guarantee loyalty. THAT would take work.

Satisfaction is NOT an action taken because something is wrong or something broke. Oh no, satisfaction is a feeling – and an indicator of future business.

Enter “loyalty,” the real measure of customer response and value. I only care about two things in my relationship with customers:

1. Will they do business with me again?

2. Will they refer someone else to me?

Those are the real measurements of success.

There are plenty of words you could use besides satisfaction that can measure the level of likelihood that a customer will continue to do business with you. Words like happiness, delight, memorability, service excellence and WOW! are all 10 times more powerful than the mediocre “satisfaction.”

If you want to know the real silliness of satisfaction, take a look at the airline industry and telecommunications companies. J.D. Power and Associates gives awards for customer satisfaction, and the companies it gives them to, pathetic at service, put big banners up on the wall, proclaiming victory. If it weren’t so laughable, you’d get upset about it.

These are the same companies that turn over as much as 20 percent of their customers annually and have the highest FTC and FAA complaint numbers of any business in the universe. If these same companies spent as much time training their people to serve memorably as they do hanging banners all over the place, they might actually do the one thing their shareholders are hoping for … retain customers.

How many customers did you lose last year? Maybe a better definition of satisfaction than mediocre would be “vulnerable.” Satisfied customers are vulnerable to your competition. You may be suffering loyalty leaks.

Rather than concentrate on customer satisfaction, make a plan that protects your customers from your competitors.

Your competition is HOPING that your customers are satisfied – vulnerable and ripe for the picking to their memorable service and value-driven actions.

Take these two actions before the year is out:

1. Call your top 10 customers. Invite them to a creative value-driven conference for a day or two that rewards them and challenges them that you seek to be better next year and need their collaborative help.

2. Have everyone in your company create five new ideas of what they can do to serve better. Reward the best ideas with a thank-you and money. Then reward your customers by implementing these ideas.

The real measure of how your company is doing are unsolicited referrals. They tell you that everything is working so well that someone is talking about you with such passion and enthusiasm that it creates a proactive phone call and an order.

That creates real satisfaction. The satisfaction of hearing your cash register ring.

If you would like one more great loyalty idea, go to www.gitomer.com, register if you’re a first-time visitor, and enter the words LOYALTY IDEA in the GitBit box.

Jeffrey Gitomer can be reached by phone at (704) 333-1112 or by e-mail at salesman@gitomer.com. © 2007 Jeffrey H. Gitomer