Are Your ‘Satisfied’ Customers Secretly Planning to Leave?

The new customer satisfaction report lands on your desk.

It’s a sea of 4s and 5s. A clear testament to your team’s hard work. A wave of relief washes over you as the numbers confirm that your customers are happy.

For a moment, it feels like the business is safe from the chaos of the market.

But is it?

That sense of security rests on a risky belief. That satisfied customers will always return.

This assumption masks a major risk. The metric itself has a flaw.

My "Satisfactory" Four-Hour Nightmare

Several years ago, I ordered an iPhone to pick up at an AT&T store.

When the employee came over to help, it was obvious he had no interest. He wanted to get me out of the door as fast as possible. And move on to the next sale.

His rush created a SIM error that Apple had never seen before. It took over four hours on the phone with AT&T and Apple to resolve.

Most people would call this a poor experience. And it was.

But if a survey had asked about my satisfaction, I would have said I was "somewhat satisfied."

Why?

The people on the phone tried their best. They finally resolved the situation. And I've heard horror stories about other mobile service providers. So, I would not expect my experience anywhere else to be much different.

Being "somewhat satisfied" with this mess shows the core issue with the metric: it's relative.

The Science of a Flawed Feeling

This phenomenon is what researchers call the Expectancy-Disconfirmation Paradigm (EDP).

Satisfaction doesn’t measure how good a company's experience is. It evaluates how well something performs relative to how a customer thinks it will perform.

My experience with AT&T was objectively poor. But they performed as expected. And I didn't expect the service to be better elsewhere.

As a result, I was “somewhat satisfied.”

Focusing on satisfaction may lead to measuring your brand against low expectations. And it creates a false sense of security, leaving the door wide open for disruption.

When "Good Enough" Goes Extinct

This isn't a theoretical risk. It has changed industries by exposing the gap between what customers accept and what truly creates a great experience.

Case Study: Blockbuster

A major point of friction was the infamous late fee.

Nobody liked it. But they accepted it. It was an expected part of the deal. It was a hassle, but the rest of the experience was good. And there were no alternatives.

For years, Blockbuster's customers were "satisfied."

When Netflix launched its subscription service, it didn’t improve the old model. It changed the game entirely. It created a new paradigm by completely eliminating late fees.

Blockbuster’s "satisfied" customers realized that what they were satisfied with was a fundamentally flawed experience.

Their satisfaction was relative to a poor industry standard. And their loyalty was based only on the lack of a better alternative.

They fled in droves.

Case Study: The Taxi Industry

Before Uber and Lyft, people were "satisfied" with taxis because the experience met their low expectations.

The friction was immense but accepted. You had to find a cab on the street. Or call a dispatcher. You had no idea when it would arrive. Or if the driver would be rude. And payment was often a clunky, cash-only ordeal.

Ride-sharing apps didn't just create a better taxi service. They used technology to reset the bar. They eliminated the friction by providing on-demand booking, transparent arrival times, driver ratings, and cashless payment.

This superior experience revealed that millions of "satisfied" customers were tolerating a broken system. They switched almost overnight.

Many of your customers are “satisfied” with your products. But how many would switch if there were a better alternative? One that addressed obvious problems.

That’s the question that matters.

From Satisfaction to Indispensability: A Better Path

With Blockbuster and Taxis, satisfaction measured what was. Not what could be.

To build a strong brand, focus on being indispensable instead of just creating satisfaction. Close the gap between the experience customers settle for and the one they would truly value.

This isn’t about incremental improvements. It’s about a fundamental shift in perspective. It’s about moving beyond satisfaction scores. And understanding if you’re enhancing your customers' lives.

And it’s not an answer you will find in a five-option survey.

You can only find the answer by deeply understanding your customers. And being honest with yourself about the reality of your products and customer experience.

Here’s how to start building a brand that people would fight to keep:

1. Measure What Matters: The Disappearance Test. Instead of asking, "How satisfied are you?" start asking, "How would you feel if you could no longer use our product/service?" And leave it open-ended. You’ll get an honest look at how essential you are.

2. Confront Your “Good Enough” Problem. Be brutally honest with yourself. What part of your product or service do customers tolerate but not love? This is the area you secretly know could be better. But you haven’t addressed it because your competitors haven’t either. This “good enough” problem is your equivalent of Blockbuster’s late fee. It is your single biggest opportunity to create an experience so superior that it makes you the preferred choice.

3. Find and Amplify Your True Value. After you confront your flaws, talk to the customers who would be disappointed if you disappeared. What specific part of your service do they already rely on? What job does your product do for them that nothing else can? Find that core offer and bake it into every part of your messaging, service, and vision.

When you stop chasing satisfaction, you begin to build an indispensable brand. And you trade the anxiety of keeping up with competitors for the assurance that you're creating value they can't match.

You’re no longer just another choice in the market. You become their preferred choice.

That is a real competitive advantage. And one that no satisfaction score can ever capture.

Onward,

Aaron Shields

P.S. Worried your satisfaction scores are hiding a deeper problem? It’s a common blind spot that leaves businesses vulnerable. Reply to this email. I’ll set up a free 15-minute call. And we'll discuss how to become your customers' preferred choice.