On todays highly competitive market it is increasingly difficult to gain an advantage through the quality of the goods and services offered. Thus the quality of customer service is growing in significance, and with the similarity in prices and products it may well prove the factor determining choice of supplier.

However good customer satisfaction is, there is always room for improvement. Even a fully-satisfied customer can be served even better giving that wonderful effect of going beyond the customers expectations. Thus the following question is always crucial: what more can one improve? Where the level of satisfaction is lower, this question is rather: what should be improved first? The answer can be determined by analysing the importance of specific aspects of service from the customers point of view, and assessing these aspects and how far they are from the ideal. Such analysis identifies those elements for which improvement would bring the greatest rise in customer satisfaction, and thus the most effective direction for investment in the quality of service.

Thus apart from the overall level of customer satisfaction a detailed analysis of this issue in regard to specific aspects is essential. Monitoring the dynamics of changes over time is also very important, because the same objective level of service quality does not necessarily mean the same level of customer satisfaction. Customers expectations can rise, after all, or the standard of service offered by the competition may be rising, resulting in the unchanged quality of ones service being perceived as worse, in turn leading to a drop in the level of customer satisfaction.

A key factor to success in building up customer relations is the employee. Companies with staff who are loyal, satisfied, and above all involved and who understand the values represented by the company have a bigger chance of achieving such success. Properly chosen research studies enable effective management of human resources, ultimately translating to a rise in service quality.

The problem of customer satisfaction is linked to their loyalty, but this is not a link as direct as commonly believed. This is why analysis of customer loyalty, covering the level and source of this loyalty, requires a different methodological approach.

The Pentor Institute offers a variety of tools providing a multifaceted approach to the issue of customer satisfaction and loyalty: