The Customer Satisfaction category examines your performance from the customer's perspective. Each of your products can earn points if it meets three criteria:
Since some products make sales in two or more segments, the algorithm produces a weighted average. For example, if a product sold 900 units in Traditional with a score of 40, and 100 units in High End with a score of 10, the weighted average would be:
(900*40 + 100*10) / 1000 = 37
A product’s December Customer Survey Score is developed using marketing’s "4 P’s"
The Survey evaluates the product against the buying criteria. A perfect score of 100 results when the product:
Promotion, driven by your promo budget, creates product awareness before customers shop. If customers are not aware of the product, they are less likely to buy, and that drags down the Survey score.
Think of it this way. Suppose you had a perfect product – a perfect design at a rock bottom price. Further, customers have no trouble finding your product when they shop, meaning that its accessibility is 100%. In this perfect world, you do no promotion at all. awareness is zero. What would happen to demand? On the one hand, some customers will stumble across your product when they shop, take the time to discover that it is perfect, and decide to buy it. On the other hand, some customers will pass over your product on their way to products they know about.
The simulation deals with the problem as follows. The customers that know about your product always consider it. Of the customers that are not aware of your product, half discover it, and half miss it. Mathematically it looks like this. Your perfect product (with perfect awareness) would start with a Survey score of 100. If its awareness were 60%, then 40% of your customers would not know about it. Of these, half (20%) would stumble across it. Instead of having the Survey score fall all the way to 60, it would fall halfway between 100 and 60, ending at 80.
Once you see that the score falls "halfway", it is relatively easy to estimate the result. For example:
| I estimate my product's design and price are worth: | Its awareness is: | So it will fall halfway to its estimated score times its awareness, or halfway to: | Ending up with a Survey score halfway in between, or about: |
| 100 | 0% | 0, because 100 * 0% = 0 | 50 |
| 60 | 70% | 42, because 60 * 70% = 42 | 51 |
| 20 | 40% | 8, because 20 * 40% = 8 | 14 |
To be precise, multiply the score you think your product deserves based upon its mix of price and product design by (1- (100%-awareness)/2). In the examples above:
100 * (1 – (100% – 0%)/2) = 100 * (1 – (50%)) = 100 * 50% = 50
60 * (1 – (100% – 70%)/2) = 60 * (1 – (15%)) = 60 * 85% = 51
20 * (1 – (100% – 40%)/2) = 20 * (1 – (30%)) = 20 * 70% = 14
Place is driven by your Sales budget. It examines the question, "How easy is it for customers to work with you during and after the sale?" We measure this with the segment’s accessibility rating. An accessibility of 80% means that only 80% of customers have an easy time finding a product, talking to a sales person, taking delivery, etc. If the accessibility is below 100%, it drags down a product’s Survey score.
The method is identical to awareness. After considering Product, Price, and Promotion, we arrive at an estimated Survey score. The Survey score falls halfway to the estimated score times its accessibility.
Let’s continue the examples from above:
| After considering my product's price, design, and awareness, I think my product would score about: | Its accessibility is: | So it will fall halfway to its estimated score times its accessibility, or halfway to: | Ending up with a Survey score halfway in between, or about: |
| 50 | 0% | 0, because 50 * 0% = 0 | 25 |
| 51 | 60% | 31, because 51 * 60% = 31 | 41 |
| 14 | 30% | 4, because 14 * 30% = 4 | 9 |
To be precise, multiply the score you think your product deserves based upon its mix of price, product design, and promotion by (1- (100%-accessibility)/2). In the examples above:
50 * (1 – (100% – 0%)/2) = 50 * (1 – (50%)) = 50 * 50% = 25
51 * (1 – (100% – 60%)/2) = 51 * (1 – (20%)) = 51 * 80% = 41
14 * (1 – (100% – 30%)/2) = 14 * (1 – (35%)) = 14 * 65% = 9
Together, Product, Price, Promotion and Place drive most of the Survey score. For example, if the product had a great price and design worth 80, but awareness of 60% and accessibility of 80%, customers might say, "The design is great and we like the price, but only 60% of us ever heard of it, and of those, only 80% could easily take delivery." The net score would be:
80 * (1 – (100% - 60%)/2) * (1 – (100% - 80%)/2) = 80 * (1 – 20%) * (1 – 10%) = 80 * 80% * 90% = 58.
However, several remaining factors could cause the score to fall further.
Two factors could cause the score to increase.
Note that Customer Satisfaction is often at odds with other goals. High scores imply high costs, and that could imply low margins. From a competitive standpoint, your demand is driven by the spread between your score and your competitors' scores. If everyone scores the same, whether at 10 or 50, they sell the same number of units.