This paper examines the development of customer satisfaction research in the non-competitive environments inhabited by public sector organisations and the privatised utilities. It explains how the absence of the stick of competition and the carrot of profit have led public sector organisations to develop new approaches to customer satisfaction research, where that research is seen as part of an auditing mechanism rather than, as in the private sector, as a marketing function. It shows how customer satisfaction research has helped in the development of supply-side performance indicators and in some cases supplanted these indicators. The paper also shows how customer satisfaction research is being developed to aid privatised utilities in decisions affecting future investment strategies and in justifying price increases needed to fund that investment.
This paper demonstrates how a campaign embracing advertising and advocacy polling was developed on behalf of the Greater London Council (the GLC) to combat the Government's attempts to abolish the GLC. The paper shows how research shifted from being a method of evaluating the campaign to becoming a major ingredient in the campaign message. Using data from surveys among Londoners, MPs and journalists, together with a content analysis of newspaper coverage, the paper shows the impact of the advertising and advocacy polling on both the public and opinion formers ; leading to a setback for the government in its attempts to push through the "Paving Bill" designed to pave the way for the abolition of the GLC.