Customer satisfaction within a large scale retail trading group: research design and control

Even in contexts where Customer Management techniques are not very advanced, the need for relations with customers is as strong as to suggest expensive ad hoc researches able to simultaneously measure the satisfaction levels, to detect the eventual inadequacy of selling actions, to investigate the relations of customers with competitors. This is why the Grande Migliore Group in Palermo commissioned a research from the University of Palermo. The research was made in year 2008 at 10 Grande Migliore shops in Palermo and in other Western Sicily towns. The multipurpose nature of the research and the features of the customers population suggested the adoption of an ad hoc research design, the features and control of which are described in this paper with particular focus on the impact of some non sampling errors.