Design of worldwide customer satisfaction survey by Lynn Hunsaker, 1991. See http://ClearActionCX.com Contact us at OptimizeCX@ClearActionCX.com

1. From left, Randy Kelley, division vice-president;
Nancy Ha"ington, regional sales manager;
Doug Kreitzer, sales/marketing manager­
Plastic Drum and Wayne Carlberg, general
manager - IBC (Intermediate Bulk Containers)
observe the results from a Customer Satisfaction
Survey done for the Semi-Bulk Packaging Division.
W
hy do you favor one brand of
soap over another? Does it con­
tain the top cleaning agents?
Does it smell better than others?
Does it make your skin soft and smooth?
How can we improve loyalty to Sonoco's
products? This is the focus of Sonoco's world ­
wide customer satisfaction survey.
"Previously, we conducted only relative
perceived quality surveys to compare our
product and service quality with a competi­
tor's. However, we could not determine from
these surveys why customers remained loyal
to a particular vendor over another," said
Lynn Hunsaker, strategic information manager.
"With this company-wide customer satisfac­
tion survey, we will find out how to improve
customer loyalty, which will provide us with
the right focus for Total Quality Management
(fQM)," said Hunsaker.
In May of 1991, Sonoco's vice-president of
TQM, Ronnie Holley, asked Hunsaker to head
a taskforce with representatives from each di­
vision and international. The objective of the
taskforce was to determine what to measure,
how to measure it, who would be involved and
how often.
"Each survey may be tailored to business
firm from Dallas, Texas, is conducting the sur­ internal activities, and assigning responsibility
units' needs. For example, within the product
veys in the United States and Canada, and su­ to specific individuals for implementing and
quality category, the High Density Film Prod­
pervising other independent researchers in monitoring improvement. This will allow the
ucts Division measures 'bag strength,' and
London (UK), Sydney (Australia), Mexico City voice of the customer to drive continuous im­
Partitions Division measures 'ease of inserting
and Bogota (Colombia). provement In TQM - Increasing loyalty - and
partitions in the case'," said Hunsaker.
More than 3,000 customers will be sur­ creating customer satisfaction through excel­
Quality Strategies, an independent research
veyed each year either by telephone or face­ lence," added Hunsaker.- by Jonathan Lee
to-face.
"The key to utilizing the survey results is in
linking each factor in the questionnaire with