CONCORD, Mass., June 26, 2009 — A new national study conducted by the Gantry Group LLC, Customer Satisfaction Business Impact & Diagnosis, reveals that 58% of study respondents rationalize their investment in customer satisfaction initiatives based on customers satisfaction scores, suggesting less strategic leveraging of customer satisfaction data. The study showed that the most effective initiatives at resolving customer satisfaction problems were formal, periodic customer satisfaction surveys to pin point specific problem areas (63%). However the impact of this initiative on several customer satisfaction metrics was reported to be only partial. Lower sales and loss of market share were partially impacted at best by 52% and 48%, respectively. Long contract renewal cycles were not at all impacted by corrective customer satisfaction initiatives for 55%.

None of the business performance metrics study respondents believe are impacted by negative customer satisfaction was resolved completely with the exception of slower growth which a minority (11%) said was completely improved by customer satisfaction initiatives. According to the study, the cost of customer satisfaction tracking programs is rationalized more by high customer satisfaction scores (25%) than increased revenue (18%), reduction in customer churn (12%) or increased repeat sales (9%).

Study respondents included C-level executives (47%), and VP Customer Care/Sales/Marketing (27%). Half of study respondents were with companies with over $100M in annual revenues, and 50% from companies with $11M - $99M. The study revealed the following additional findings:

• The greatest challenges to implementing formal customer satisfaction tracking programs was inability to distill data into actionable recommendations (46%), and difficulty identifying meaningful metrics that test all customer points of interaction (43%).
  


• Responsibility for customer satisfaction starts with the CEO (31%), but then is scattered across various functional areas including operations (39%), sales (31%), customer care (30%), and marketing (28%).
  


• Tying customer satisfaction to employee performance-based compensation was deemed to have positive impact on customer satisfaction problems by 57%. This initiative was reported to be in use by 43% of the study sample.
  

About Gantry Group    
Gantry Group is a strategic consulting firm that guides technology-based solution providers to build offerings that capitalize on urgent market needs and challenges. For the past decade, Gantry Group’s customer satisfaction, primary market research and ROI/TCO measurement services have armed the world’s leading technology vendors with targeted market intelligence to support their strategic business decisions and inform their solution roadmaps. Backed by over 25 years of experience, Gantry Group delivers to business executives the firsthand customer metrics, market insights and predictive measurement capabilities that allow them to accurately quantify the business opportunity and position themselves to seize the greatest market share.

For study results, please call Gantry Group at 978-371-7557 ext 19, or click here to download directly.

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