Abstract:

Delivering excellent customer service requires that managers continually survey customers for feedback and promptly respond. Today the Internet has begun to enable customers to provide feedback more easily quickly cheaply and accurately than ever before. Due to the Internet a revolution in customer satisfaction measurement is imminent and the Internet will become the most widely used means of measuring customer satisfaction early in the 21 st century. This paper addresses why the Internet is rapidly supplanting conventional vehicles for customer satisfaction measurement (CSM) and reviews survey design and analysis that can be utilized to glean insights on an organization’s operational performance strategic advantages and competitive limitations - considerations which apply equally well to Internet and conventional surveys. Where Internet surveys can best be used and the kinds of Internet surveys currently available will be examined utilizing as a case study the first worldwide customer satisfaction survey conducted on the Internet for a Fortune 500-class company.