Customers and employees are a company’s most important assets. Keeping customers satisfied is often difficult, but it is generally much easier than winning new customers. Satisfied employees perform better than dissatisfied ones, and they are more loyal to the company – and thus more willing to go the extra mile in difficult situations. They transport a positive image of the company to the outside world.
These relationships are generally recognized. But measuring the key dimensions in a valid way and changing them in a positive and efficient manner requires special know-how and methods.
Customer and employee loyalty are complex latent variables, which can be quantified with the aid of various indicators. Often, the connections between loyalty and its influencing variables at different levels are equally complex. Loyalty again may have an impact on various aspects of behavior, such as the tendency to remain a customer of a company, to intensify the relationship, or to recommend the company to others – or the tendency to continue to work for a company over a long period and to support it with a high level of commitment.
Complex causal analysis procedures make it possible to quantify the direct and indirect influences in such interrelationships and to use these learnings in the context of CSM (Customer Satisfaction Management) and ESM (Employee Satisfaction Management) systems.
