TELOS: a customer satisfaction evaluation software

Telos is a consumer-based tool for measuring and analysing customer satisfaction. The software uses survey data on customer satisfaction judgements while the analysis of collected information is based on a preference disaggregation model. The implemented methodology follows the principles of multicriteria analysis using mainly ordinal regression techniques. The main advantage of the presented software is that TELOS fully considers the qualitative form of customers' judgements and preferences. A simple numerical example is used for illustrating TELOS's basic features like simplicity, friendliness, and effectiveness. Finally, an overview of customer service management technologies is briefly presented and several extensions of TELOS's features and capabilities are discussed. Scope and purpose Customer satisfaction research is one of the fastest growing segments of the marketing research field. Its main objective is to measure strengths and weaknesses of a business organisation, while getting closer to the customer. Several methodological approaches, based on different scientific areas, are used in order to define, measure and analyse customer satisfaction. Many of these models do not consider the qualitative form of customers' judgements, although this information is the basic customer satisfaction input data. Usually, necessary input data cannot be easily collected, and, at the same time, the results are not fully reliable. Furthermore, in several cases measurements are not sufficient enough to analyse in detail customer satisfaction because models' results are mainly focused on a simple descriptive analysis. TELOS, a customer satisfaction measuring and analysing software which is discussed through this paper, overcomes these disadvantages, by implementing a multiple criteria preference disaggregation methodology, which provides to the user a complete and effective series of results. The main objective of the paper is to present TELOS's basic features and capabilities, as well as to highlight possible extensions and future research. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.