What, if anything, should your supervisor learn from Fountain's analysis?
Fountain (2001) shows my supervisor how to achieve a more genuine, more ethical and, hence, possibly more enduring level of customer satisfaction, at the paradoxical cost of losing the ACSI rate in popularity.
Qualities of service can often become confounded one with the other. Fountain (2001) gives three instance of this. In the first, the quality of the actual service may become obscured by the intangible treatment that the customer may receive from service transaction or encounter. In other words, qualities such as cordiality, genuineness, friendship, and the reverse may result in client rating quality of service according to the intangible treatment received.
Secondly, consumers receive the end product through service delivery employees. It is the behavior if these employees towards the consumer that affects the way the consumer rates product (regardless of actual quality). Consumers, in other words, come into contact with service delivery personnel rather than with personnel such as factory workers who are in far more immediate contact with the product or service. This observation is related to the first.
Thirdly, the consumer's input affects his opinion of product. His mood, manner of input and conduct, accuracy and willingness to supply needed information (and so forth) determine the quality of the product or service received. As a case in point, a sullen client who distorts his medical history will likely receive inadequate and incorrect medical treatment leading his to criticize that particular medical service when approached by the ASCI. The evaluation may well be incorrect.
The customer's satisfaction is, hence, highly subjective, and it would be difficult to base any objective analysis on his or her opinion. When related to the ASCI scale that uses the mathematical formula of measuring arithmetic difference between the quality of service received and...
Too many variables, such as his personal social skills, possible prejudice towards employees of service, misunderstanding, and so forth, can bias his opinion and the quality of service / product may, indeed, be diametrically converse to client's estimation.
What services would do, and many endeavor mightily to do this, is to then strive to please the consumer. The paradox here is that integrity and quality may be lost in the process. By becoming overly consumer centered, the quality of service / products may decrease since consumers may actually desire it thus. An example here could be the case of great literature being lost since consumers may render that literature as violent, grotesque, or sex-ridden. They would, therefore, render an institute that teaches that literature as low on their scale of satisfaction leading to academic, and business reports (for instance) concluding that the institute falls short of public expectations. The paradox, then, is that instead of pleasing the consumer, as the ASCI intends to accomplish with its report, consumers may actually destroy service excellence and much-needed political change.
Conclusively, what I would recommend my supervisor to derive from this exchange is the importance of combining two characteristics when dealing with her organization: firstly, the endeavor to please and satisfy the client by taking his or her consideration into account, and closely listening to his needs; but this should be integrated with integrity, i.e. The pursuit of excellence and needed change that is unaffected by client's desires. The two may be difficult to achieve and the manager may lose popularity that may be reflected in the ASCI ratings. The manager has to ultimately decide which value is more important to her. America needs integrity.
