The latest thinking on customer satisfaction measurement

Why we feel we understand the issues aroundcustomer satisfaction O We have been carrying out customer service audits, by telephone and face to face interviews, since 1995.. O 6000 interv

The latest thinking on

Customer Satisfaction

Measurement

Leading Edge Management Consultancy Limited 27th April 2004

Why we feel we understand the issues around

customer satisfaction

O We have been carrying out customer service audits, by

telephone and face to face interviews, since 1995

O 6000 interviews have been completed

O We always use ‘moments of truth’

O Audits are comprehensive but expensive

O A web based system is be cheaper

O KPI-online was developed and launched (now known as

ACE)

And what we do ourselves:

O We became quality assured in 1997 and

now have ISO 9000: 2000

O We aim to capture our clients expectations

in our briefing sheet when we meet the

client

O We use KPI-online system for getting

feedback from our clients

O We have been using a system for

capturing improvements since 1996, called

Worry Notes (now known as PIN Notes)

The need for change

Source: Benchmarking the Government Client Stage 2 Study: Agile Construction

O A benchmarking study of 66

central government

departments’ construction

projects (with a total value of

£500m) showed that in 1999:

· 3/4 of the projects

exceeded their budgets

by up to 50%

· 2/3 exceeded their

original completion date

by 63%

The issues for a modern efficient and effective

construction industry

O The construction industry is not known for focusing on

customers’/end users’ needs

O Many of the people who are actually managing construction

projects have no experience in doing so

· head teachers

· hospital trust managers

· groups that have been allocated lottery money

(e.g Bootle Cricket Club’s pavilion)

O They may have an unrealistic idea of what they are going to get for their limited budget and may be insufficient

O The public sector (with the NAO) is driving the way of engaging stakeholders in defining construction outputs not inputs

But we can help by changing the way we

approach customer satisfaction

To improve, we need to:

O understand what is

important to each customer

as an individual

O measure to give a datum

point to show where

improvement is needed

O look for where

improvement is needed

O have specific actions to work against

O choose a specific person to

be responsible for making sure agreed actions are carried out

O measure continuously to show that improvement has

And so we must begin with a measurement

system that asks the right questions

O Many companies have

been working with Key

Performance Indicators

(KPI’s) - but if they get a

low score they don’t know

what to do to improve it

O We need to measure

things that give us an

action list to work against

O If people are being scored and they don’t understand the basis on which they are being scored, it can

be very threatening

O They need to understand what they need to do to

‘score an 8’

Principle 1 Measure in a useful way by

focusing on ‘Moments of Truth’*

O A ‘Moment of Truth’ is

anytime a customer comes

into contact with any aspect

of a business, however

remote

O It is an opportunity to form

an impression

O Many ‘Moments of Truth’

are controlled by people

O People are probably your

least controllable asset

O Murphy’s law says, according

to Tom Peters,

· ‘each bad moment of truth scores 10x against you,

· but each good moment of truth only scores 1x for you’

Make the questions into statements which the

scorer can agree with on a scale of 1-10

O Understand what the

customer expects

· so that the team can strive

to meet it

· not every element is

equally important

O Measure what the customer

perceives is the level that

the team is reaching

· so that the team can

identify where its

performance is falling

short

O Focus on the performance gap between the two

· removes the arbitrariness

of different scoring scales, i.e what is an 8 out of 10 for one person may be a 6 for another

O Perception may not be reality - but that means the issue still exists, but is one

of communication

You need to be able to aggregate the data

against business models that managers are

familiar with

O While project team members need to work to improve their

‘Moments of Truth’…

O Managers need to get a higher level strategic overview

against standard business models that they use:

· Business excellence model

· Customer satisfaction

· Quality standard ISO 9000:2000