When Service Means Survival

摘要

Corporate managers tend to focus on the importance of good customer service, but money managers haven't paid nearly as much attention to service when picking stocks.rnA2006 study by University of Michigan Ross School of Business Professor Claes Fornell, who directs the National Quality Research Center, found that his group's quarterly release of customer service ratings had little immediate impact on stock prices. But Fornell and other researchers have found that investors can profit over the longer term from the scores, known as the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).rnWhile BusinessWeek's rankings are derived from J.D. Power customer satisfaction data, academics studying the connection between cus -tomer service and stock performance have often used the publicly available ACSI data, which goes back to 1994. A recent study-conducted by Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management Professor Bruce Cooil and four co-authors-looked at the predictive value of quarterly customer satisfaction scores from 1996 through 2006. Buying all of the companies with high scores wasn't a consistent winning strategy. But a portfolio of companies whose ACSI scores had risen over the past year and were above the national average far outperformed the market, gaming an average 1.08% per month. Over the 10-year period, the portfolio more than tripled, gaining 212% while the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rose 105%. Companies whose scores had declined and were below average lagged the market, losing 2%.