The
reality of Customer Satisfaction is in the eyes of the beholder - the
customer. The sooner we realize and accept our customers' perceptions of our
products and services as reality, and accept it as our challenge, the sooner
we will earn their confidence and become their permanent supplier of choice.
Customer connectivity represents a set of business
processes touching on all aspects of the company. Customer satisfaction is a
great deal more than the clichés "getting close to customers" and the motto
"the customer is always right". Since some companies sell to a variety of
customers with varying and even conflicting desires and needs, the goal of
getting close to the customers, and the motto that "the customer is always
right", are somewhat vague. We have also found no meaningful business
philosophy in the terms "market driven" and "customer oriented". Most
business gurus use the phrases interchangeably and have difficulty in
defining and communicating their scope and meaning. Successful business
leaders go beyond these clichés and strive to provide their selected
customers with products and services under the business philosophy of
Customer Connectivity.
Because different customers have different needs, a
company cannot effectively satisfy this wide range of needs equally. The
most important strategic decision in the pursuit of Customer Connectivity is
to choose the most important customers. All customers are important, but
invariably some are more important than others. Collaboration among the
various functions is important when pinpointing key target accounts and
market segments. This done, sales people know whom to call on first and most
often, the people who schedule production runs know who gets favored
treatment; those who make service calls know who rates special attention. If
the priorities are not made clear in the calm of planning meetings, they
certainly won't be when the sales, production scheduling and service
dispatching processes get hectic.
Customer connectivity starts with customer selection
however, the next phase is just as important. Company executives must gain a
thorough understanding of their customers' buying influences and their
relevant needs. Such customer information must be communicated by these
executives beyond the sales and marketing functions and permitted to
"permeate every business function" - the R&D and design engineers,
manufacturing/quality people and field-service specialists. When these
technologists, for example, get unvarnished feedback on the way customers
use their products, they can better develop improvements on the products and
the production processes. If, on the other hand, market people predigest the
information, technologists may miss opportunities for improvements.
Customer connectivity must be predicated on team
dynamics and commitment. Serial communications, when one department passes
an idea or request to another routinely, without interaction can't build the
team dynamics and commitment needed for Customer connectivity. Successful
new products don't, for example, emerge out of a process in which marketing
sends a set of specifications to R&D; R&D sends the conceptual design to
design engineering which sends finished blueprints and designs to
manufacturing. But joint design/development reviews and decision-making, in
which customer and supplier functional and divisional people share ideas and
discuss alternative solutions and approaches, leverages the different
strengths of each party. Powerful internal and external connections make new
product development communications clear, coordination strong and commitment
high.
Establishing effective business relationships with
key customer personnel is paramount to making it easy for customers to do
business with your company. From the shop floor to the front office, we must
establish "one-on-one" customer communications that provide real-time
customer input relative to business relations, product performance, and
field service. We must convert these communications to action plans and put
forth our best effort to quickly resolve all issues. Let's remember that
being nice to people is just 20% of providing good customer service. The
important part is designing systems that allow you to do the job right the
first time. All the smiles in the world are not going to help you if your
products or service are unsatisfactory.
Individual and team direct-line communications with
customers is the best approach to obtaining timely and relevant "how are we
doing" feedback from customers. Customer satisfaction surveys are tedious,
possibly supplier biased and not very accurate in their customer service
portrayal. We prefer a "one-on-one" customer connectivity system!
About the Author: Bill Gaw (
http://bbasicsllc.com/BillGaw.htm ) is the founder of Business Basics,
LLC and a "been there, done that" lean enterprise advocate. He is the
developer of six e-training packages and seven e-training modules published
to help individuals and companies reach their full growth and earning
potentials.
His "back-to-basics" methodologies are not available
in the books at Amazon.com neither in the APICS library, nor the Harvard
Business School Press. You'll find them all at:
http://bbasicsllc.com
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