Upstream customers spend hundreds of billions annually on oilfield products and services. Some suppliers are too preoccupied with the ups and downs of commodity cycles to effectively focus on the customer. Others believe customer satisfaction might not really matter at all, seeing their mission only in terms of helping to find and produce hydrocarbons as efficiently as possible. Because it's all physics and price, they argue, attributes such as professionalism, reliability and accountability do not count as much as in other industries. Unfortunately, some suppliers' seeming lack of interest in customer satisfaction has only grown more pervasive with the recent strength in demand for their products and services. In an independent customer-satisfaction survey conducted recently by EnergyPoint Research, a Houston-based market-research firm, a total of 476 respondents at 178 E&P companies and upstream consultants worldwide indicated that they are, on average, less pleased with the current quality of drilling and wellsite services they are receiving. A similar survey conducted by the firm showed customers' satisfaction with providers in the U.S. gas-gathering and -processing sector to be even lower, with some providers' ratings hovering at or below those registered by the ever-unpopular Internal Revenue Service. The issues weighing on customer satisfaction in the industry today are not limited to any single area of performance. As one survey participant says, "Virtually all providers are suffering from a lack of qualified personnel these days. Equipment maintenance has deteriorated, service quality is a fraction of what it was a few years ago, and constant supervision to the point of micromanagement is almost a necessity. And rising costs and inefficiencies are beginning to severely affect project economics." For more on this, see the February issue of Oil and Gas Investor. For a subscription, call 713-260-6441.
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