Customers are satisfied when their total expectations are met which is formed by many internal and external factors such as word of mouth recommendation of the person they are close to, Personal needs, past experiences, external communication by the service providers.
Word of mouth: As human beings are social animals, they prefer to live in social connections. Then they become rely on others word of mouth when deciding to do something new to themselves.
Personal needs: There are many levels of personal needs such as physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs and self actualizations.
Based on the level of their hierarchy, people will have different needs. In order for a service provider to meet the needs of its customers, they need to know who their customers are (what are the demographic profiles of their customers. Then it will be easier to meet their expectation. In this context, knowledge of the customer’s functional and emotional needs will be of usefulness.
Past experience: People form expectation for the future based on their past experiences. Constraint to past experiences, if people have frequent contact or used that particular service for along period of time, they will have higher expectation than that of novice customers. The expectation between the long standing customers and novice will be different too, also the expectation will be higher if the customer previously experience positively than previous negative experience. Therefore, in some cases, it is important to customize the service depending on the loyalty of the customer.
External communication by the service provider: This refers to the promises made by advertising, personal selling, and public relations. Therefore, it is important in any promotional activities not to overpromise the customers. The successful implementation of the promise will be based on such activities as communication between advertising and operation, communication between salespeople and operations, communication between human resources, marketing and operations, difference in policies and procedures across branches or departments. These are what we called in marketing “Integrated Marketing”.
In summery, customers are satisfied when the service fits their expectations, or very satisfied when the service is beyond their expectations, or completely satisfied when they receive more than they expect. On the contrary, customers are dissatisfied when the service is below their expectations, and when the gap is high, they tend to communicate the negative aspects.
If the company knows the demographic profiles of its customers and factors that influence their expectation, allocate the resources in order of the height of the expectation, manage according to the limit of the resources, the customers will be happy with the company which will increase the total revenue and bottom line profit which is the aim of any profit making company in the world.
Source: Delivering quality service (Parasurman 1990) and self knowledge.
Figure (1) Factors Affecting Customer Expection
Word of mouth: As human beings are social animals, they prefer to live in social connections. Then they become rely on others word of mouth when deciding to do something new to themselves.
Personal needs: There are many levels of personal needs such as physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs and self actualizations.
Figure (2) Level of Personal Needs
Based on the level of their hierarchy, people will have different needs. In order for a service provider to meet the needs of its customers, they need to know who their customers are (what are the demographic profiles of their customers. Then it will be easier to meet their expectation. In this context, knowledge of the customer’s functional and emotional needs will be of usefulness.
Past experience: People form expectation for the future based on their past experiences. Constraint to past experiences, if people have frequent contact or used that particular service for along period of time, they will have higher expectation than that of novice customers. The expectation between the long standing customers and novice will be different too, also the expectation will be higher if the customer previously experience positively than previous negative experience. Therefore, in some cases, it is important to customize the service depending on the loyalty of the customer.
External communication by the service provider: This refers to the promises made by advertising, personal selling, and public relations. Therefore, it is important in any promotional activities not to overpromise the customers. The successful implementation of the promise will be based on such activities as communication between advertising and operation, communication between salespeople and operations, communication between human resources, marketing and operations, difference in policies and procedures across branches or departments. These are what we called in marketing “Integrated Marketing”.
In summery, customers are satisfied when the service fits their expectations, or very satisfied when the service is beyond their expectations, or completely satisfied when they receive more than they expect. On the contrary, customers are dissatisfied when the service is below their expectations, and when the gap is high, they tend to communicate the negative aspects.
If the company knows the demographic profiles of its customers and factors that influence their expectation, allocate the resources in order of the height of the expectation, manage according to the limit of the resources, the customers will be happy with the company which will increase the total revenue and bottom line profit which is the aim of any profit making company in the world.
Source: Delivering quality service (Parasurman 1990) and self knowledge.
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