4
“Emotionalizing”
the Yardstick:
Why Customer
Satisfaction
Isn’t Enough
Customers perceive service in their own unique,
idiosyncratic, emotional, irrational and totally human
terms. Perception is all there is.
—Tom Peters
Management Consultant
For as long as we can remember the promised land of service-
focused organizations—the accomplishment that, once
achieved, suggested they’d arrived among the ranks of cus-
tomer service exemplars—has been represented by two
sought-after words: customer satisfaction.
When customers report being “very satisfied” or “satis-
fied” on our surveys, we take it as a sign of their continued
loyalty, believing they’ll continue to spend their dollars with
us and recommend us to others. Yet the truth is that while sat-
isfying ...