Sometimes it takes a disaster to show how companies deal with crisis situations.  In the aftermath of the Costa Concordia cruise ship tragedy, the industry association TravelAlliance reported that 37% of travel agents report being contacted by clients booked on 2012 cruises.  Of those customers, an estimated 10% have expressed interest in canceling their voyages.

Forbes ran an interesting article a couple weeks ago about some surprising customer satisfaction results from last Christmas's shopping season. It seems that holiday shoppers are increasingly coming to prefer shopping online to shopping at brick-and-mortar retailers. 

For years, companies have relied strictly on advertising to bring in and retain customers but it appears now that customers may respond as well to marketing research as advertising to keep them satisfied with a company or brand.

We all know what Swiss cheese is – the cheese with the holes.  The holes, which are naturally formed during the fermentation process, allow air to pass through the cheese, giving it a distinctive taste and consistency.  In this case, holes are expected and good but when conducting marketing research, unexpected holes are bad.

Last week (1/7/12), The Wall Street Journal reported on a phenomenon that they coined "feedback fatigue."  According to WSJ, "With emailed appeals for comments on commonplace transactions and customer-service calls that beget requests to take a survey, consumers are being pinged for opinions at a rate that has gotten some publicly grousing about a surfeit of surveys."

Today's blog has nothing to do with marketing research.  Its only relationship to customer satisfaction is that I hope it makes you smile.  Sometimes, humor is enough.

Earlier this week, another of our Polaris editorial team, Danica Kwon, explored the idea via her blog that your employees are also your customers.  Some companies may dismiss this but others take it to heart.

With the start of the New Year many people are thinking or seeking a new job. Are you one of the many? A study released by Mercer, reported that a third of U.S. employees are doing just that. The survey also found that more than half of senior managers are among them. So why are people leaving?

As reported in CBS Money Watch, "Verizon Wireless just took one of the fastest strategic U-turns in the history of customer relations. Last week, the company announced that it would add a $2 fee for one-time phone and online payments. People raised an immediate ruckus and Verizon rescinded the decision the next day." 

A new study by MarketTools shows that 60 percent of consumers would shop either online or at a ‘brick-and-mortar’ store more often because of good customer service while nearly 30 percent stated that they had stopped shopping at a specific store because of a bad shopping experience.

I think everyone would agree that faster service is better service.