By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
South Korea's competitive power has been improving gradually in terms of customer satisfaction with the quality of products and services over the past years, a survey by the Korea Productivity Center (KPC) showed Monday.
According to a National Customer Satisfaction Index (NCSI) survey, the country's nation-level index rose to 72 points in 2007 from 58.8 points a decade ago. KPC has been conducting the surveys regularly since 1998.
Devised in collaboration with University of Michigan in the United States, the NCSI was introduced to South Korea for the purpose of gauging customer satisfaction with the quality of products and services in each industry, economic sector and nation of origin.
America also has its own index, or the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), and the country's nation-level index last year was standing at 75.2 points, 3.2 points higher than the NCSI of South Korea.
But the gap between the two countries has been narrowing, according to the KPC _ from 13.8 points in 1998 to 12.8 points in 1999, 9.1 points in 2000, 7.8 points in 2001, 6.0 points in 2002, 5.9 points in 2003, 3.7 points in 2004 and 2.6 points in 2005.
``In 2006, the index gap widened to 3.6 points. But it narrowed down again to 3.2 points in 2007, which means that domestic companies are making continuous efforts to enhance the quality of their products and services,'' a KPC researcher said.
Over the past 10 years, the NCSI has taken firm root in the country as the most reliable index on consumer satisfaction, helping the country and its enterprises enhance their competitive edge in global competition.
In particular, the NCSI has played the role of locomotive for goodwill competition among companies and other service units by releasing the survey results regularly through news media.
``Our survey results remind society of the importance of customer satisfaction and encouraged enterprises to focus management on this factor,'' a KPC official said. ``Ultimately, they contribute to the improvement of people's quality of life.''