Customer satisfaction & corporate reputation

Effective decision-making is paramount to the success or failure of any organization. Leadership decisions must reflect proper understanding of customers' needs as well as the needs of the organization. This study utilizes quantitative statistical methods of correlation to provide a better understanding of the impact of customers' satisfaction levels on an organization's reputation as perceived by the organization's leadership. By comparing the criteria used in the determination of Fortune magazine's list of the World's Most Admired Companies to that of the American Customer Satisfaction Index the study finds patterns of correlation that provide further credibility to the theory that effective leadership should incorporate the relationship between achievements of corporate reputation and customer satisfaction levels.