Introduction: Beyond Customer and Employee Satisfaction--The Ownership Quotient

A customer owner is one who tries a product or service, is so satisfied that she returns to buy more, states a willingness to tell others of her experiences, actually convinces others to buy, provides constructive criticism of existing offerings, and even suggests or helps test new products or ideas. A customer who behaves like an owner is worth more than a hundred typical price-sensitive customers over the customer owner's lifetime with your organization. Similarly, the lifetime value of an employee who can promote customer ownership is priceless, and an organization that learns how to cultivate an ownership attitude creates a self-reinforcing relationship between customers and frontline employees. This chapter introduces the service profit chain, which will help you develop the preconditions for ownership in your organization, and describes how to measure the ownership quotient of your customers and employees.