The manner in which we craft their expectations and manage these expectations. The way we listen to their concerns and tailor our actions to take care of these concerns. The traditional focus on quality and service does not produce a valid interpretation of satisfaction, on how it is generated and how we can produce it. Our common understanding assumes that if we provide enough quality or enough service, satisfaction will result. However, we have evidence to support that quality and service alone can not produce recurrent satisfaction.
Satisfaction is a distinct and separate issue.
We claim that it is the customer's entire experience with us that determines his or her declaration of satisfaction. We say that this experience is not objective at all but totally subjective. It is the customer's call. That call is based upon the customer's perception of the experience. We say that satisfaction is a linguistic phenomenon, a spoken or written declaration made by a customer in conversations with us or others.