Customer satisfaction has become a thoroughly accepted corporate objective. In a survey conducted in 2006, 97% of 211 managers interviewed said that to them customer satisfaction was a key
business objective. In the meantime, there are probably very little executives left, who would deny the overall relevance of customer satisfaction. It is important to remember however, that
customer satisfaction is not a corporate goal in itself- it is (merely) a means in the sense that the customers' satisfaction needs to be tied to the company emotionally. Greater market and
economic successes are to be generated through the customer’s connectedness in the sense of customer loyalty.
As early as the beginning 1990s, Reichheld and Sasser (1991) pointed out in a much-discussed article, that customer loyalty leads to different positive effects for companies. Thus, the cost of
holding a customer is estimated to be about 15-20 percent of the acquisition costs of a new customer. Furthermore, the profit of a held customer increases commensurate to the duration of the
customer relationship. This is attributable to increased purchase frequency and increased revenue as well as additional turnover due to further recommendations. In addition, continuous feedback
from customers create new market opportunities. Over the past two decades, this knowledge has spread throughout the broad masses of corporate practice. Nowadays, however, this realization is
increasingly being questioned.
Firstly, the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty is not automatically a given. For example, the desire for variety, leads even satisfied or highly satisfied customers
to change to an alternative provider. Think of your favorite restaurant, for example. If you like to go to Vapiano, you will also visit a Greek, Asian or German restaurant, just for the sake of
change. Moreover, the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty is becoming increasingly weaker in many sectors. Thus, a growing share of customers is willing to change
despite satisfaction. This has various reasons, such as an improved informational situation of the customers about products and services, their price and quality. It has never been easier to get
product and performance related information thanks to the Internet, tablets, smartphones and other technological innovations.
Secondly, and this is certainly just as serious, customer satisfaction as a generally accepted corporate objective is no longer suitable for differentiation from the competition. If every company
tries to satisfy its customers and promote customer satisfaction as a corporate objective, how can positioning be achieved against the competitors who all do the same?
Thirdly, different types of loyalty can be distinguished. Customer loyalty is achieved through a contractual, technological or situational (such as convenience) relationship in an
involuntary attachment- a rather weak or non-existent emotional bond, monetary calculations, i.e. due to a low price. Even with this form of purchased customer loyalty, the emotional attachment
is very weak or not, an emotional bond, which constitutes the strongest bond, by outstanding performance quality, through confidence-building measures, involvement of the customer, individual
service offers with added value for the customer.
However, since customer satisfaction is generally understood as a purely rational cognitive comparison of service expectations and performance perception, it is less suitable to represent the
customer's emotional connection in the sense of customer loyalty.
Today, companies are looking for ways of reorientation and have found them in the goal of creating customer enthusiasm, with emotional customer loyalty as the most important goal in the
management of customer enthusiasm.
A study by J. D. Power and Associates (2011) further showed, that for example guest turnover in the hotel industry increased correspondingly with increased customer satisfaction. They were delighted to be able to recommend a hotel or to stay there again (recommendability: 62 per cent with satisfied customers, 89 per cent with enthusiastic customers, repeat hotel stay: 28 per cent with satisfied customers, 57 per cent with enthusiastic customers). Similar results showd in a study by Bartl / Gouthier / Lenker (2013). The customers of a large German premium automobile manufacturer were asked to look at the quality of their web pages pertaining to a particular model. It could be shown that enthusiasm with the website positively influences the buying intent for the vehicle, while just satisfaction does not have a significant effect on an increase in purchase intention. Also, in many other industries there now are more and more companies, that include an embrace customer enthusiasm in their vision, mission, strategy or as an objective. A total of 81 per cent of surveyed customer managers confirmed that customer enthusiasm is a top-3 topic for their company. In addition to customer enthusiasm, further strategic targets include return on capital, growth and attractiveness as an employer.