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Why you should forget about customer satisfaction

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Customer Satisfaction

Paul Glen Tech Republic

Published: 30 Mar 2005 11:10 BST

While clients can usually distinguish between adequate and inadequate work, they may not be able to distinguish between good and brilliant work. If they knew enough to differentiate, they probably wouldn't need your help.

So instead, they judge the quality of your work based on proxies. They judge based on the experience of being a client rather than the beauty of your code.

Imagine that you hired a lawyer to write your will. How would you decide if you were satisfied? Your decision probably wouldn't be based on whether the will was written in perfect iambic pentameter. Assuming the legal document contained the key things that you requested, you would judge based on the experience of working with the lawyer.

Did you receive the deliverables on time? Did you get explanations in language that you understood? Were you condescended to? Was the price as promised? Was the lawyer available when you wanted to talk?

Satisfaction in professional relationships is based more on the experience of the relationship than on the quality of the product. Using customer satisfaction as a goal too often leads to efforts to improve satisfaction by improving the product, emphasizing the one thing that your clients probably won't notice.

So instead of focusing on customer satisfaction, a better goal is to create a quality "client experience". When you do that, both you and your clients can share in a more satisfying relationship.

Paul Glen is the author of the award-winning book "Leading Geeks: How to Manage and Lead People Who Deliver Technology" (Jossey Bass Pfeiffer, 2003) and Principal of C2 Consulting. C2 Consulting helps IT management solve people problems. Paul Glen regularly speaks for corporations and national associations across North America. For more information go to www.c2-consulting.com. He can be reached at info@c2-consulting.com.