Complete customer satisfaction occurs when a customer has a positive experience from start to finish while purchasing a product or service. Understand that any product sale, service, or encounter with a customer is a process—a loop if you will.

The first encounter may be a brand, an advertisement, or a word-of-mouth referral—this begins the loop. 

The second encounter may be due to interest or desire to fulfill a need and thus the person comes to your store or marketplace to inquire about your product or service. At this point you need to ask yourself some questions: Was our advertising clear? Were our salespeople accessible? And if it was an online experience—Was their visit to our website defined by clarity and adequate information? Was there an option for more info? [Much could be said about website design but I'll keep it to a few points: First, think about the customer when you design your site. They want the least amount of clicks to find a service or item and buy it. Second, keep your site clean and simple—not too much information upfront; make them click for that.] 

The third encounter is when the person becomes a customer—they take a leap of faith, even a risk, and buy your product or service. [And hopefully they won’t be back to return it or complain!] 

The fourth encounter is their hands-on experience with the product or service. Did it meet their expectations? Are they happy with what they bought? 

And then a final encounter may happen when you as a company follow up with the customer to see how they are enjoying the new product or service OR there’s a problem and the customer contacts you. In my next post I'll discuss what follow-up might look like.