Improvement actions based on the customers' satisfaction survey

The purposes of a customers' satisfaction survey are not only to learn the actual satisfaction level, but also to highlight the strengths and the area for improvement. Through the continual improvement actions, the enterprises can increase customers' satisfaction and raise profits. Due to customers evaluating the quality of product or service by considering several important quality attributes, firms must take improvement actions on the important attributes that have a lower satisfaction level. The introduction of the Importance-Satisfaction model in this paper will allow the enterprises to classify the attributes straightforwardly. The I-S model, based on the importance and satisfaction surveys of the quality attributes, is a simple and powerful tool for enterprises to find out the excellent attributes and the "to be improved' attributes, which require improvement actions immediately. In this paper, the author also develops a satisfaction function reflecting the performance of related quality attributes. It helps the enterprises to make a more precise decision on improvement activities. Meanwhile, the features of the satisfaction function cold also support the useful applications of I-S model. Considering both the satisfaction function and the deduction of optimization theory, a firm can obtain optimal conditions, which reflect the important guidelines to locate the key attributes to be improved. If one enterprise conducts a customers' satisfaction survey frequently and maintains the correct cost records, then the historical data can be applied in real business practice.