Measuring customer satisfaction for an R&D organization

Quality may be defined as the extent to which a product or service meets (or exceeds) the customers expectations. Thus, the measurement and use of customer satisfaction data is at the heart of any quality program. But how does the concept of customer satisfaction apply to internal organizations (such as R&D) within a corporation? This paper presents the experiences and the lessons learned from managing a customer satisfaction program for a large R&D organization within AT&T.