The assessment of business customers’ satisfaction in the B2B market on the example of a metallurgical company

The guarantee of a company’s success in the business to business (B2B) market is the acquisition of customers satisfied with the purchased products or services and loyal to the company. The metallurgical industry is a specialised sector with a narrow group of buyers. In order to ensure mutual relations in the B2B market, numerous activities are carried out to strengthen the ties between business partners. One of such activities is the assessment of customer satisfaction, which gives the company an opportunity to learn about the needs, preferences, and expectations of its customers. The aim of the study was to assess the satisfaction of business customers with the cooperation with a chosen company in the metallurgical industry, a world leader among solutions in the metal heat treatment sector. The CAWI (Computer-Assisted Web Interview) technique was used to achieve the aim of the work, in which proprietary research instruments were used. To assess the loyalty of the company’s business partners, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) was used. The study was carried out at the turn of 2021/2022 in two stages of cooperation between the company and its business partners. The first verification was carried out after signing the final protocol and the second after the end of the warranty period. The study was global. 104 companies from various industries and operating on international markets participated in the survey. The results of the conducted research showed a high rating of customer satisfaction with the cooperation with the company. This is evidenced by both the high values obtained of the NPS index (51.7% for tests made after the device was launched, 55.6% for tests carried out after its warranty period), and high ratings of customer satisfaction with the products and services offered by the company. The results of the study also allowed the authors to identify areas of the company’s activity for further improvement.