Customer Satisfactory Survey Best Practices
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Customer Satisfaction Survey Best Practices
Jessica J. Fly, MCSM and Dennis C. Bausman, Ph.D
Clemson University
Clemson, SC
Construction is an increasingly competitive industry where organizational focus on exceeding
customer needs and expectations takes on added significance. It is
important for improved
performance and essential to establish a competitive advantage. The
industry’s best contractors
consider profitability a critical element for organizational success and know higher customer
satisfaction can lead to enhanced profitability. The purpose of this research paper is to identify
how top performing contractors solicit, disseminate, and respond to customer feedback. A self-
administered survey was used to solicit information regarding
contractor’
s client feedback process.
The sample used for the study was general contractors located in the Southeastern United States
with a minimum annual volume of ten million dollars. The survey instrument was designed to
collect nominal and interval data on the company and their approach to customer satisfaction
surveys. For data comparison, indicators for financial performance were included to separate top
performers from the balance of the sample. Statistical differences found that top performing firms
are committed to obtaining, evaluating, and reacting to client feedback. Not only do the best
regard enhancement of customer satisfaction related to services and performance as a primary
objective, they also view customer satisfaction as an organizational focus and key in evaluation of
project team performance.
Key Words: Customer Satisfaction, Client Satisfaction, Satisfaction Surveys, Feedback Process,
Best Practices
Introduction
Annual construction volume in the United States exceeds 1.2 trillion dollars (US Census Bureau). Construction is
one of the largest industries and is
often considered a barometer of the nation’s economic health. The industry is
highly competitive with an average pretax margin of less than 2% of construction volume. Quite often contractor
selection is price-driven, in large part because of the difficulty firms have in differentiating their service and/or
product. The end game is a completed facility, and construction is often viewed as a commodity (CFMA, 2007;
Bausman, 2001).
However, the construction industry has a unique combination of characteristics and factors influencing the delivery
of each project.
It is an industry that uses the ‘project’ method of delivery to plan, price, organize, and produce a
unique facility. Each constructed facility typically represents a major long-term investment for an owner who is
actively involved throughout the delivery process. Due to the unique production environment, the delivery process
can also have perceived value (Bausman, 2001).
Each project has extensive and well-documented requirements for the physical product that set forth construction,
appearance, and performance criteria
. These criteria are used in the evaluation of the contractor’s production process
and establish the standards governing the acceptability of the final product. However, many of the production
variables have a high ‘service’ component. In contrast to the tangible finished product, contractor services provided
during production are intangible and more complex, ambiguous, and difficult to evaluate. Regardless, construction
services provided during project delivery are routinely assessed based upon perceived quality and customer
satisfaction. In the final analysis, customer satisfaction is influenced by both the production process as well as the
finished ‘good’ produced by the contractor
(Maloney, 2002; Anderson et. al., 1997).