Listening to Customers Top companies recognize the importance of listening to their customers as part of their strategy to manage satisfaction. Customer satisfaction indices are based on surveys of customers, and the results plotted over time to reveal changes in satisfaction levels. The first stage is to identify those characteristics (choice criteria) that are important to customers when evaluating competing products. The second stage involves the development of measure scales (often statements followed by strongly agree/strongly disagree response boxes) to quantitatively assess satisfaction. Customer satisfaction data should be collected over a period of time to measure change. Only long-term measurement of satisfaction ratings will provide a clear picture of what is going on in the marketplace. The critical role of listening to customers in marketing success was emphasized by Tom Leahy, chief executive of Tesco, the successful UK supermarket chain, when talking to a group of business people. ‘Let me tell you a secret’ he said, ‘the secret of successful retailing. Are you ready? It’s this: never stop listening to customers, and giving them what they want. I’m sorry if that is a bit of an anticlimax...but it is that simple.’ Marketing research can also be used to question new customers about why they first bought, and lose customers on why they have ceased buying. In the latter case, a second objective would be to stage a last-ditch attempt to keep the customer. One bank found that a quarter of its defecting customers would have stayed had the bank attempted to rescue the situation. One company that places listening to customers high on its list of priorities is Kwik-Fit, the car repair group. Customer satisfaction is monitored by its customer survey unit, which telephones 5,000 customers a day within 72 hours of their visit to a Kwik-Fit centre. A strategy also needs to be put in place to manage customer complaints, comments and questions. A system needs to be set up that solicits feedback on product and service quality, and feeds the information to the appropriate employees. To facilitate this process, front-line employees need training to ask questions, to listen effectively, to capture the information and to communicate it so that corrective action can be taken.