Beyond the Satisfaction Survey – The Satisfaction Survey goes only so far. It is best seen as a starting point for more dialogue-oriented customer consultation

Among the stakeholders regularly consulted by both public bodies and commercial companies, one category stands out – customers

Customer consultation is one of the four consultation environments identified by the Institute, and should be within the core competence of every organisation that delivers services or supplies products. Sadly, it is often a neglected area.

It is true that managers nowadays organise “Customer Satisfaction Surveys”. But many of these are token efforts only. They include very general questions and require such sparse demographic data that they can only offer a limited analysis capability. Such data as can be gathered from such surveys are unlikely to influence senior managers, or to lead to significant product or service improvements.