{"id":71,"date":"2011-06-22T11:24:17","date_gmt":"2011-06-22T11:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.travelindex.com\/blog-posts\/?p=71"},"modified":"2022-05-05T10:46:55","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T10:46:55","slug":"how-customer-satisfaction-is-hurting-your-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/travelindex-blog\/how-customer-satisfaction-is-hurting-your-business\/","title":{"rendered":"How Customer Satisfaction is Hurting Your Business"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Can we talk about my all time favorite subject? I am referring to the implied power of customer satisfaction. By Nanci Sherman, <\/em>Hotel Strategist at <\/span> Cure for the Common Hotel<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

I am so enthusiastic about the distinction between happiness and customer satisfaction that I built an entire company around this premise.<\/p>\n

If the bar in your business for generating loyalty and acquiring a fan base is to have \u201csatisfied guests,\u201d I invite you to take a little trip with me.
\nFor those of you who have been riding along with me for a while, this will be old hat.\u00a0 For new readers, you will often hear me speak about how the language we choose shapes our lives and the results that follow.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, focusing on customer satisfaction as a barometer for excellence and loyalty is akin to a bride wishing for a satisfactory marriage, telling your friends about your satisfactory dog, or even your satisfactory shoes.\u00a0 When we spend our money, we all want more than mere satisfaction, so let\u2019s talk about what we really want.<\/p>\n

With rare exception, people want to love their mate, their pet, and for some of us, we prefer to have a closet of shoes we love versus the satisfactory shoe, as in \u201cMy feet get a little soaked when it rains but if I stick this newspaper in them, it\u2019s OK\u201d \u2013 Satisfactory.<\/p>\n

How does this translate to hotels? I daresay that we assume our guests are satisfied when we don\u2019t receive a complaint from them and we hope they will return the next time they are in town. (You may recall that hope was never taught as a strategy in business schools).<\/p>\n

When I deplane and the luggage meets me at the carousel, I am satisfied.\u00a0 People paid attention to my route.\u00a0 If another airline lowers their fare next time I fly, I will probably jump ship as I have several Elite Rewards cards.\u00a0 Satisfaction isn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n

To assess our guests\u2019 satisfaction, we ply them with surveys.\u00a0 Most of these pose questions that are quantitative in nature and keep us apart from our guests\u2019 emotional response to their experience with us, yet we all know emotional relationships build brands.\u00a0 While it is common for hoteliers to pepper their language with the word \u201cexperience\u201d many are lacking methods to determine such.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll save how we can invigorate ways to gather really meaningful and quality information in another article. Suffice to say for this article that these surveys are designed to measure the low bar of satisfaction where the already expected meets the most basic of expectations.\u00a0 Clean room, friendly staff, food was hot. Expectations met \u2013 check. Satisfied \u2013 check. Not a \u201cwow\u201d in sight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want satisfied customers\u201d has a much different ring to associates than \u201cWe will do whatever it takes to be number one in our guests\u2019 hearts.\u201d I hope you can hear the distinction and intention behind each.\u00a0\u00a0 It is through the language we choose that we make our intentions clear and our culture and training programs are then built on top of that. If it were me, I would raise the bar of expectation higher than what \u201ccustomer satisfaction\u201d implies.<\/p>\n

Fasten your seat belt. Here come the L and H words – out of the closet forever (also not big on the business school circuit). Your guests want to love you and they want you to make them happy.\u00a0 Anything less is \u201cmyth\u201dinformation. Create standards from the heart and their hearts will be yours.\u00a0 If that is your paradigm, then love for your business will surely follow.<\/p>\n

People spend from their wallets but buy from their hearts.<\/p>\n

Nanci Sherman, <\/em>Hotel Strategist at <\/span> Cure for the Common Hotel<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can we talk about my all time favorite subject? I am referring to the implied power of customer satisfaction. By Nanci Sherman, Hotel Strategist at Cure for the Common Hotel I am so enthusiastic about the distinction between happiness and customer satisfaction that I built an entire company around this premise. If the bar in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1859],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travelindex-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelindex.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}