A novel and accurate guide to customer satisfaction

Purpose - Aims to provide a quantifiable metric for a library management activity. Design/methodology/approach - A light-hearted view of a serious and commonly undertaken library management activity. For the last nine years the author has been trying to identify effective and easily quantifiable metrics for customer satisfaction for special libraries. Findings - This has proved far more difficult than the author had hoped, as customers always seemed perfectly satisfied, and even when they were not, they usually blamed themselves. Following the creation of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) after the partial privatisation of the UK's Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, the drive for more accurate satisfaction measurement became more urgent, and became a personal performance target on the author's annual review. Originality/value - A light hearted view of a topic of concern for all library professionals.