It is often said we cannot measure customer emotions, so they remain elusive and intangible. ‘How satisfied are you on a scale of 1 to 5?’ doesn’t really cut it in the emotion measurement stakes. That’s head, not heart.
But back in 2001 Gallup created a customer emotion thermometer of sorts that sounds a lot more useful than the usual ‘satisfaction’ questions. It is made up of eight key measures, grouped into four ‘constructs’:
CONFIDENCE
XXX is a name I can always trust
XXX always deliver on what they promise
INTEGRITY
XXX always treats me fairly
If a problem arises, I can always count on XXX to reach a fair and satisfactory solution
PRIDE
I feel proud to be a XXX customer
XXX always treats me with respect
PASSION
XXX is a perfect company for people like me
I can’t imagine a world without XXX
The highest rung of the emotional ladder is passion, says Gallup, not surprisingly. You can instantly see how useful a tool an emotional thermometer like Gallup’s might be in assessing how warmly your customers feel towards you and in helping you focus on where you need to improve to heat the relationship up.
Source: A paper by Alec Applebaum called The Constant Customer , in the Gallup Management Journal. See also Amy Wong’s article ‘The role of emotional satisfaction in service encounters’, Managing Service Quality, Vol 14, Number 5, pp 365-376.
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