Contingency factors in customer satisfaction survey

Si au cours des vingt dernières années la pratique en matière de mesure barométrique de la satisfaction clients s’est largement développée auprès des entreprises, la fiabilité des indicateurs de performance issus de ces mesures n’est pas forcément maitrisée. La satisfaction comme indicateur de performance est aujourd’hui admise par les managers, néanmoins son utilisation au quotidien pose quelques questions, notamment celle qui touche la capacité des indicateurs produit à partir de la mesure barométrique d’évaluer fidèlement la performance. La question théorique que nous traitons dans cette thèse concerne l’étude de la représentativité et de la sensibilité des indicateurs de satisfaction face à l’existence de certaines sources exogènes (facteurs sociodémographique et géographique) que nous avons qualifiées de facteurs de contingence. Notre recherche repose sur l’examen des indicateurs de satisfaction lorsque ces derniers sont utilisés comme des instruments de comparaison entre magasins : d’un point de vue transversal (comparaison entre unité de gestion) et d’un autre longitudinale (l’évolution dans le temps des indicateurs). Par le biais de trois propositions, nous avons confronté une série de facteurs de contingence au fonctionnement des indicateurs satisfaction afin de connaitre si les indicateurs remplissent bien leurs rôles. Pour arriver aux résultats, un cadre théorique explicatif de l’action des facteurs de contingence et des analyses statistiques basées sur les procédures bayésiennes pour le calcul de l’importance ont été mis en place. Les données d’analyse sont issues de deux baromètres de satisfaction. Les cumuls en termes d’individus interrogés dans chaque baromètre sont de 175000 individus pour le premier et de 40000 individus pour chaque trimestre (16 trimestres sont disponibles) pour le second. Les conclusions de nos travaux pointent la défaillance de l’indicateur de satisfaction issu des baromètres à concorder avec les exigences des instruments de contrôle de performance. Le tout avec des actions importantes des facteurs de contingence type géographique.Even if during the last twenty years the practice of barometric measurement of customer satisfaction has developed significantly among companies, the reliability of performance indicators derived from these measures has not necessarily been mastered. Satisfaction as a performance indicator is now accepted by managers however, its everyday use poses some issues, including those affecting the ability of barometric indicators to accurately assess performance. The theoretical question we address in this thesis is the study of the representation and the sensitivity of indicators of satisfaction which are affected by the existence of certain exogenous sources (demographic and geographic factors), which we refer to as contingency factors. Our research is based on the review of indicators of satisfaction when they are used as instruments for comparing shops: on a transverse view (comparison between management units) and another longitudinal view (changes in time indicators). Through three proposals, we have looked for a series of contingency factors on operating satisfaction indicators to know if the indicators fulfill their roles. To achieve the results, an explanatory theoretical framework for action of contingency factors and statistical analysis based on the methods of calculating fiducial-Bayesian importance were established. Data analyses are based on two satisfaction surveys: accumulations in terms of individuals interviewed in each barometer with 175 000 individuals in the first one and 40 000 individuals for each quarter (16 quarters are available) in the second one. The conclusion of our work shows the failure of the barometric satisfaction indicator to match the requirements of theperformance monitoring tools. The most important of these being the geographical contingency factors

Abrupt cooling over the North Atlantic in modern climate models

International audienceObservations over the 20th century evidence no long-term warming in the subpolar North Atlantic (SPG). This region even experienced a rapid cooling around 1970, raising a debate over its potential reoccurrence. Here we assess the risk of future abrupt SPG cooling in 40 climate models from the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). Contrary to the long-term SPG warming trend evidenced by most of the models, 17.5% of the models (7/40) project a rapid SPG cooling, consistent with a collapse of the local deep-ocean convection. Uncertainty in projections is associated with the models' varying capability in simulating the present-day SPG stratification, whose realistic reproduction appears a necessary condition for the onset of a convection collapse. This event occurs in 45.5% of the 11 models best able to simulate the observed SPG stratification. Thus, due to systematic model biases, the CMIP5 ensemble as a whole underestimates the chance of future abrupt SPG cooling, entailing crucial implications for observation and adaptation policy

Correction: Abrupt cooling over the North Atlantic in modern climate models (Nature Communications (2017) 8 (14375) DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14375)

The original HTML version of this Article omitted the article number; it should have been '14375�. This has now been corrected in the HTML version of the Article. The PDF version was correct from the time of publication