2004 Q2 Interpreting Customer Satisfaction Scores
Often times we are asked how to interpret customer satisfaction scores. Although there are no standard rules of interpretation, the following can be used as a guideline. It is based on our experiences with customer surveys. An interpretation of a 1 to 5 scale where 1 equals very dissatisfied and 5 equals very satisfied is:
5 = You’re doing a great job.
4 = You’re products or services are okay.
3 = Call me. Things aren’t going great.
2 = I probably will never do business with you again.
1 = I will actively go out and bad-mouth you to everyone I know.
Another way to interpret scores is to determine the percentage of customers willing to repurchase. For this illustration we will use a scale of 1 to 4 where:
1 = poor, 2 = fair, 3 = good and 4 = excellent. In this example, 91% of customers that rated the products or services as excellent are very willing to repurchase while 67% that rated it good are very willing to repurchase. For those who rated the products or services as either fair or poor, the percentage willing to repurchase is very low.
