How likely is it that you would recommend a company with which you do business to a friend or colleague?

That one-question survey likely serves as the best metric of customer satisfaction. So many customer satisfaction surveys are opaque and bury as much data as they reveal.

In a commentary published in The Financial Times last week, Fred Reicheld and James Allen - consultants with strong ties to Bain & Company - argue that a direct satisfaction metric helps a company focus on earning customer loyalty. General Electric and American Express agree, according to Reicheld and Allen: "[They] focus on one statistic that nets the percentage of customers who are unhappy (scoring 0-6 out of 10) from the percentage who are loyal promoters (scoring 9 or 10). The Net Promoter Score [NPS] provides a single number as clear and actionable as net profit or net worth...GE ties a significant portion of managers' bonuses to meeting NPS goals."

The FT essay got me thinking about which companies I do business with, and my level of satisfaction and commitment to them. Indeed, my ratings on these two areas show my willingness not only to recommend the company to a friend, but also how likely I would be to bolt the stable if an attractive competitor came along.

My insurance company would be the first to go. I presently am insured with California State Automobile Association (popularly known as Triple A) for both home and auto. Last year I had a burst water pipe in my home that ruined some flooring and insulation, so I made a claim and had some repairs done. Now my insurance premium has risen significantly. When I called in to ask why it had gone up so much, I was reminded that I had made a claim. I can't believe that I am "penalized" for making a home claim. It's not like I rammed into somebody with my car. It really begs the question: Why do we have insurance anyway? We end up paying one way or another for the insurance we do use. Like the premiums we pay are what we owe the insurance company, rather than money that they hold for us in security.

Sadly, I have not found a single insurance company that I admire. But if an insurance company came around that offered real value and fair exchange, I would switch in a second. Capricious pricing in the insurance industry contributes to my dissatisfaction. Because pricing is so arbitrary, we feel like we are getting gouged (and we likely are).

I feel the same about my cell phone bill. It is so obtuse that I am not sure exactly what I am paying for. I currently use T-Mobile, and have passed through Cingular and Sprint with good riddance. Frankly, most customers are in the wrong mobile calling plan and overpay for their usage.

Reicheld and Allen make reference in their FT commentary how a cellular phone operator calculated that if it put customers in the plan that was best for them it would cut their profits 40 percent. No wonder most of us would give our cellular phone company the heave if we did not get with a high penalty for doing so. Some of us scratch digits on our wall counting the days until we are free from our plan.

Banks also nickel and dime us to death with fees. Retail banks now depend on extra fees for as much as a third of their earnings. They may gain revenue in the short term, but with their rapacious attitude banks are doing major damage to their customer loyalty (see the J.D. Power study on the right column of today's WAG).

Finally, high on my list of "do not recommend" are service workers - plumbers, electric garage door repair, auto mechanics - who double charge me for fixing my problem. It's a trend: I received a bill last week for "service" and "labor." When I asked the mechanic to explain his bill, he said "service" was simply taking a look at my problem, and labor was actually doing something about it. Check them off my list.

Customer service would change if companies realized that satisfaction and commitment of their customers had a direct impact on their bottom line. Reicheld and Allen demonstrate that damage to company reputations and poor service throttles business success. They relate the experience of Enterprise-Rent-a-Car. Branches with higher customer satisfaction scores grow faster and are more profitable on average than branches with lower scores. For that reason, Enterprise branch managers receive their customer satisfaction scores - from the simple one-question survey - every month along with their income statements. Enterprise employees working in branches scoring below the corporate average are ineligible for promotion.

Now that's taking customer satisfaction seriously.