Some of the most customer service intensive industries are considered to be the airline industry, the hotel industry, the telecom industry. These are industries that deal with customers on a one-on-one basis every minute of the day and therefore it is pertinent that they provide complete and competent service all the time.

A great way to learn about the manner in which a company can make a difference is to look at the top ranked companies in the industry and see what they are doing. Studying them also helps in giving an insight into what differentiates them from the pack. Let us take a look at some of the top ranked in terms of customer satisfaction and what really makes then stand apart.

1. Airline industry – JetBlue Airways has bagged the first rank among all economy and low cost airlines for the third time in a row. The survey conducted by J.D. Power and Associates. The fact that the customers continued to vote for JetBlue as their favorite airline even during the economic downturn goes to show the extent of loyalty that JetBlue customers have for the brand. Despite being a low cost airline, JetBlue treats each and every passenger as kind. They have been tuned to customer needs and have ensured larger legroom and they also have in-flight email and instant messenger services on board. Started as an airline that wanted to bring back humanity to the airline industry, they have stuck by their promise and each and every employee that is hired is assessed on the basis of safety, caring, integrity, fun and passion.

2. Telecommunications industry – J.D Power associates awarded the top rank to T-Mobile for the second time in a row in the wireless retail customer satisfaction survey held among wireless majors. The brand left behind brands like Verizon, Sprint and AT&T. The reason why T-Mobile has managed to stay on top of things is due to their performance on ‘quality of sales staff’, ‘price’ and ‘promotions’. Sales representatives explain the data plan in the most recent calls, and a third even discuss 3G offerings. Showing basic courtesies like being straight forward, smiling, maintain eye contact and the like have also helped immensely in putting T-Mobile where it is today.

3. Express delivery – Fedex has been known to obtain the best scores in the customer satisfaction domain. In a survey conducted by the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), it was found that Fedex was being considered as the best express delivery because they believe that there is an important connection between team member satisfaction and customer satisfaction. This company has ranked number 1 for 12 years consecutively and therefore they definitely know what they are doing. No doubt therefore that the company is also considered to be the most admired and trusted employer too. It has a team of more than 290,000 inspired team members that continue to stay absolutely and positively focused on specific aspects like safety, ethical and professional standards and the changing needs of the customers.

A page can definitely be taken from the customer satisfaction books of these top ranked companies to learn how to increase customer satisfaction.

There are various studies that mention how the cost of a new customer acquisition is ten times more than retaining one. And therefore companies know that when they have a customer they need to hang on to what they have. Proper customer satisfaction analysis is what can help in arriving at the action that needs to be taken to retain customers.

Just knowing the level of customer satisfaction is not enough. The level of satisfaction does not give diagnostics with regards to what should be done to improve the score and increase the level of happiness of customers. Neither does it help in understanding the various potential areas that can create customer delight.

What this essentially means is that there are various other metrics, other than the overall satisfaction that need to be tracked. A customer satisfaction dashboard is a great way in which various parameters can be tracked on a regular basis. There are also some software options that can provide customer satisfaction alerts in case the satisfaction of a particular area, region, division or center dips below a certain level.

Some of the must have metrics that should be used to create a customer satisfaction dashboard are listed below.

1. Customer Satisfaction Index – Most obviously, this is the most important parameter that should be used to create a customer satisfaction dashboard. The index should take into account all the information that is captured at an overall basis and create a ‘one-number’ index that can be tracked across various players in the industry.

2. Customer Satisfaction Index by Segments – While the overall index can provide an insight into the performance of the company or the brand as a whole, it is necessary that the same parameter should be tracked for various regions, divisions, dealerships or stores to be able to assess their performance. It is only fair that the various segment stakeholders be able to see their performance easily since customer satisfaction index is often an important KPI that is set for managers.

3. Trends in Satisfaction Levels – Not only is it important to look at satisfaction levels at an absolute level, the trend is also important. A time series customer satisfaction dashboard helps in understanding if the performance if dipping or not. This is helpful because at times a dip may not apparent if the company is still performing well. But a trend customer satisfaction analysis can help in taking corrective measures in time.

4. Customer Typology – This is an interesting analysis that you can do to understand the spread of the customers that you have. If you create a grid of customers based on low loyalty, high loyalty, low satisfaction and high satisfaction you can classify your customers into mercenaries (low loyalty, high satisfaction), evangelists (high loyalty, high satisfaction), hostages (high loyalty, low satisfaction) and goners (low loyalty, low satisfaction). This customer satisfaction analysis can also be done on an ongoing basis to understand the changing face of the customer base.

5. Driver Analysis – This analysis can be performed to understand the attributes that are genuinely important. It can be done by regressing the satisfaction scores of individual attributes to the overall satisfaction score. The higher the beta coefficient, the more important the attribute is towards increasing customer satisfaction.

6. Key Attributes – While it may not be able to put all the attributes that are being tracked on to a customer satisfaction dashboard, it may be pertinent to identify the top five attributes and create a dashboard for the same. This will help the managers to ensure that they never lose sight of the parameters that are extremely important for the client.

7. Issue Tracking – This is a relatively qualitative part of the dashboard where extremely disgruntled customers can be brought to the notice of managers by customer satisfaction alerts. These special cases can then be tackled to reduce and cap the damage that has been done. This is an essential part of customer satisfaction management since an unhappy customer can bring about immense bad word of mouth.

8. Changes in Important Attributes – While this is a customer satisfaction analysis that you do not have to do every time, creating such a dashboard and updating it once in a while is helpful. This is because you may not generally see changes in the attributes that are important very frequently in the industry unless you are in the technology niche. But creating a dashboard like this will help in remaining ahead of the crowd.

9. Comment Scroller – A comment scroller is a customer satisfaction analysis that allows a company to understand the positive and negative comments that customers share. Managers can look at this scroller to get insights into the manner their customers think.

10. Competitive Indexing – Customer satisfaction index can never be treated in isolation. It is always interpreted in relation to the manner in which competition performs. A competitive customer satisfaction analysis can be converted into a dashboard where the difference between the scores of the company and the nearest competitor can be seen at all times.

It has been a difficult decade for the hospitality business. The awful events of September 11, 2001, led to a sharp decline in leisure travel. Just when business was getting back to normal, the economy turned sour, forcing both business and leisure travelers to cut back on their plans.

In an effort to cut costs to cope with the decline in business, some hotels have reduced staff and eliminated some amenities for guests. But at what point do such cutbacks threaten guest satisfaction and lead to even further erosion in business? How can hotels boost customer loyalty by focusing on improving things that guests really care about? Those are the crucial questions that hotels must consider as they try to control costs while at the same time keeping their guests satisfied.

Knowing what to cut
In February 2009, research company TNS conducted a survey of 2,500 adults to determine how cuts in hotel services might affect their choice of hotels (http://www.quirks.com/articles/2009/20090505.aspx). Specifically, the survey asked about five types of reductions in services: