Any organisation has to listen to its external customers and stakeholders. In a number of studies it has been shown that the long-term success of a corporation is closely related to its ability to adapt to customer needs and changing preferences. Customer Satisfaction is a crucial goal for most organisations.

In order to monitor customer satisfaction, and to take action for improving it, a number of different methods have been developed and tested. However, for the purpose of developing tangible applications for results a number of criteria have to be fulfilled on any such measurement system, not least if the ambition is to compare and benchmark.

This is the spirit in which the European initiative to stimulate the development of National Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) studies was initiated. It started in the mid 1990s by discussions emerging from experience in Sweden, where a national CSI was established in 1989, and from USA, where a national study similar to the Swedish model, started in 1994.