Demand Satisfaction!

Satisfaction is based on this crazy idea that customers themselves are the answer to getting better customer service. But this doesn’t mean that customers always have the answer–often only the company itself can fix the problem, implement a feature, reset a password. We have this theory that Satisfaction can help make companies a bit more responsive by making their customers’ needs more transparent. And in the process make the company a lot more accountable.

Though we haven’t publicly launched the service yet, our early tests are proving our theory true. Last week, for instance, a problem that had been reported directly to the company in question had repeatedly gone unresolved. The dedicated customer support rep (likely awash in a sea of trouble tickets) had responded in a kindly, but ultimately unsatisfying manner:

It’s a bug we’ve been meaning to fix, but it’s fallen behind bigger priorities; very good point though. I’ve shared your comments with the team.

This inspired a user to post this issue as a problem on the (beta) Satisfaction site for this company, and within a day or two several people had piled on, providing details about their issue and how they had reported it via email to no avail. They also noted the lack of resolution achieved through official channels. Already Satisfaction was serving the dual purpose of a.) comforting people with the knowledge that they weren’t alone in the problem, and b.) publicly elaborating on the critical issue.

This proved strong bait, and soon one of the company’s executives was circulating on the Satisfaction site asking questions of the users, probing for details of the problem, and ultimately announcing that he would spearhead getting the fix done. And within hours it was fixed, to the surprise and joy of the users. In the words of a “satisfied” participant in the process:

…my pal cam twittered that he was having this same issue and was doing about something about it using the new project he’s involved in called satisfaction. about 4 people posted to the issue and explained the problem in detail and a representative followed up. and goldtoe got us a heckuvalot more satisfaction than the original support rep…and so now, [the product] is perfect.

What’s phenomenal is that once the problem was resolved in this utterly public environment customers were more enamored of the company than ever, to the point of publishing adoring blog posts and (practically) swearing their undying loyalty. The fact that the company had initially stumbled didn’t matter at all once Satisfaction got everyone talking, solving real problems in real time.