100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Really?

I just finished working with a casual dining client. A truly best-in-class company. They practice what they preach and deliver on their brand's promise. They practice daily excellence in their culture.

Flying home yesterday I was having a pretty poor experience with my airline. While talking to the gate attendant I noticed the sign proclaiming "100% Satisfaction Guarantee". I found it ironic seeing how I was roughly 0% satisfied. I wonder if the gate attendant had ever read this company pledge.

So as I flew, several hours later than I was scheduled to fly, I pondered the countless companies proclaiming and declaring their promise of satisfaction to their customers. Two things immediately struck me, first, in most companies this is an empty promise. And by now customers are not fooled. Customers have heard the promise enough and experienced anything but satisfaction. Customers have heard time and time again this promise and have later felt dooped, conned, and tricked. It's like sitting on hold for twenty minutes waiting to speak with your credit card company while the automated recording tells you how much they value your business and strive to deliver 110% customer satisfaction.

By now I'm chuckling to myself on this dark plane and people are wondering what's wrong with me. I wonder what affect failing to live up to this promise has on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. My second thought was that "satisfaction", if and when achieved, is not enough to create a loyal customer base. Research shows that customers need to be very satisfied, highly satisfied over and over to become loyal.

So as I flew through the night sky I found myself pondering such things, wondering when companies will stop promising and start delivering on their substantial promises. Next time you want to speak with a customer service agent but instead you're on hold for a half hour hearing a message tell you how important you are, maybe you'll ask yourself, am I really important to this company?