Guest Post: Survey Says….DP3 Provides Increased Customer Satisfaction

Note: This is an article originally published in the National Forwarding’s “Moving Forward” Winter 2012 Newsletter. Since it does an excellent job of explaining the true results of the customer satisfaction survey, we asked permission to reprint it here. Thanks to the entire National team for their willingness to share their insights with the industry.

Industry Average Customer Satisfaction Scores Effective January 2012:
Domestic – 77.08; International – 77.57; Int’l Baggage – 82.93

Customer satisfaction is the principle goal of DP3. By that measure, it is clearly a success. To understand what these Customer Satisfaction Scores mean, you have to look at the survey. The following is a summary of the questions and potential scores associated with them followed by an analysis of the survey. We will limit the discussion to the Domestic HHG score.

First, we should clear up some common misconceptions which will arise if the survey questions and potential scores are not carefully considered. Some observers might equate a score of 77.08 with the score they might have received on a test when they were in school. A 77% score would result in a “C” grade. It is not bad, but it is not a score that will result in high praise. Others might look at the average score of 77.08 and conclude that it means 77.08% of the survey respondents were satisfied with the service they received. Both assumptions are incorrect.

If customers think that the service was “good,” they will assign the second highest score out of five, resulting in a total survey score of 75. The overall industry average is 77.08. Therefore, it is clear that the industry is performing at a high overall level. On many surveys of this nature, the second highest score is described as “very good” rather than simply “good.” No matter how you shade the wording, achieving the second highest score out of a five is very good performance.

Another way to look at this is to ask yourself how you would determine whether or not a customer is “satisfied.” It is clear that if customers mark “satisfactory,” they are satisfied. If a customer gives the TSP a rating of satisfactory on all questions, the score will be 50. The industry is far above that level. The only way to determine the overall satisfaction level is to determine the percentage of customers with surveys that indicate they were “satisfied” (those with a score of 50 or higher). Since we do not have an industry-wide breakdown of all surveys, we can’t determine that number for the entire industry. However, we have our own data based upon a very high number of surveys, so our data should be fairly representative of the industry overall. Our satisfaction rate is 88% based upon surveys completed in the last 12 month period. The industry average should be about the same.

Another issue to consider is the presence of what is referred to as “naysayer bias” which arises in a survey process such as this one which requires the customer to take the initiative to complete the survey. Under those circumstances, a customer who is dissatisfied is more likely to go the trouble to complete a survey than a satisfied customer. This should to be taken into account when the satisfaction rate is determined. We can compensate for the negative bias by including data from our move management process which calculates an estimated score on shipments for which a survey was not completed by the customer. Adding in our move management data reveals our true customer satisfaction rate of 94%!

Lastly, we need to consider the nature of the program and the extremely high volume of business being conducted in a compressed timeframe. We must stretch our systems and employees to the breaking point during the summer when DOD needs additional capacity. That necessarily will result in a higher incidence of service problems and lower customer satisfaction survey scores. We looked at a slower month to see how our scores stack up when the workload is reduced. Our satisfaction rate in October jumped up to 97.5% and our average score is 88.52.

Any process that depends on human beings will never be perfect. Individual service problems need to be addressed aggressively and corrective measures taken. However, leadership still needs to focus on the big picture to mark overall performance and progress. By that measure, our industry continues to provide a high level of satisfaction to our military customers and the DOD. The DP3 program deserves much of the credit for making the customer’s subjective assessment of satisfaction the focal point of the TSP’s Best Value Score. We expect to see continuous improvement if the industry is allowed to concentrate its efforts on service enhancements and the expansion of capacity to meet the demands of the peak season.

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