“Customer satisfaction is the biggest driver of customer retention.”

I saw this the other day as the subject in an email and had to ask, “Is this news to anybody?”

This kind of thing always surprises me. How can things that are so obvious be such eye-opening news?

It seems the customer experience movement gets ensnarled into this conundrum on a regular basis. Great effort is expended to amass a ton of data to tell us things to which we can only respond with, “thank you Captain Obvious.”

Why would anyone dismiss the thought that customer satisfaction drives customers’ propensity to return? Is it because they’ve seen customers return to places where they are made miserable? Is it because they know customers who have some deep-seeded desire to be treated poorly?

Perhaps the best example of this kind of need for data to “prove” the obvious is when business leaders want evidence for the efficacy of investing in making customer experiences better. Really!? Do those leaders like to buy from companies that make it difficult? Do they somehow enjoy it when they are treated indifferently? What exactly is the psychosis that develops once people become business leaders?

Okay, enough. It is really simple folks. When you do the job for customers and make it a no hassle, enjoyable experience, they like it and are more likely to return and buy more from you. I don’t have a spreadsheet full of data, I just have a little common sense and a lot of experience being a customer myself—all things you have as a business leader or employee of a business.

Given the state of crappy service we are seeing so much of these days, isn’t it about time to forget about reams of data and use some of that common sense and experience to make improvements?

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