Customers play an important role and are essential in keeping a product or service relevant so it is in the best interest of the business to ensure customer satisfaction, and build customer loyalty. Customer Satisfaction can be measured as the percentage of total customers whose reported experience with the offerings of an organization exceeds specified satisfaction goals. In a competitive marketplace where businesses compete for customers, customer satisfaction is seen as a key differentiator and increasingly has become a key element of business strategy.
Customer retention starts with the first contact an organization has with a customer and continues throughout the entire lifetime of a relationship and successful retention efforts take this entire lifecycle into account. High customer retention means customers of the product or business tend to return to, continue to buy or in some other way not defect to another product or business, or to non-use entirely. A company's ability to attract and retain new customers is related not only to its product or services, but also to the way it services its existing customers, the value the customers actually perceive as a result of utilizing the solutions, and the reputation it creates within and across the marketplace.