MoneyWatch

The Twelve Laws of Customer Satisfaction

By Geoffrey James

Updated on: September 9, 2008 / 3:05 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

One of the biggest misconceptions about customer satisfaction is that it's tied to the products and services that you're selling. The truth is that if your offerings aren't superlative, in today's harsh competitive climate, you'll be out of business within a week.

In B2B sales situations, customer satisfaction comes from how you, the sales professional, interact with the customer. To this end, there twelve fundamental and inviolable laws that come into play every time you interact with a customer:

Rule #1: Your customer wants to feel important.
Rule #2: Your customer craves being appreciated.
Rule #3: Your customer is NOT interested in you.
Rule #4: Your customer wants two things: success and happiness.
Rule #5: Your customer wants you to truly listen.
Rule #6: Your customer will NOT connect unless he feels valued.
Rule #7: Your customer buys emotionally but defends logically.
Rule #8: Your customer's average attention span is very short.
Rule #9: Your customer wants to be understood.
Rule #10: Your customer is drawn to those who show true interest.
Rule #11: Your customer wants to teach you something.
Rule #12: Your customer wants your help in some aspect of life.

If you're not behaving in a way that's congruent with these laws, your customer will not be happy with you, or your firm. Contrariwise, if these laws are driving every aspect of the customer relationship, you'll have a customer who will praise you to the skies, give you referrals and buy from you as long as you have something valuable to offer.

The above is based on a conversation with Jerry Acuff, author of The Relationship Edge in Business (Wiley, 2004).