2008 Articles
February 04, 2008
APQC's Knowledge Base Newsletter: "CUSTOMER SUPPORT BECOMES STRATEGIC"
As global competition and customer demands intensify, the service delivered after the initial sale of a product is now what truly differentiates competitors from one another in today’s increasingly service-driven marketplace. While products and features can be duplicated, aftermarket support is very difficult to replicate and can have a substantial impact on a company’s revenue, profitability, and customer loyalty levels.
In fact, a recent article in Harvard Business Review, entitled “Beating the Market with Customer Satisfaction,” featured a study conducted by University of Michigan’s National Quality Research Center that substantiated the connection between customer satisfaction and Wall Street success. According to the research, “the companies with high customer satisfaction scores have blown the S&P out of the water.” Not only “have they produced higher stock returns, but their stock values and cash flows have been less volatile.”