How satisfied are your customers? Some painful questions about your CRM

Citation

(2002), "How satisfied are your customers? Some painful questions about your CRM", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 6 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/mbe.2002.26706dab.004

How satisfied are your customers? Some painful questions about your CRM

"What the company thinks its customer wants" is not necessarily the same as "What the company thinks it has to offer" is not necessarily the same as "What the company actually offers" is not necessarily the same as "How the customer experiences this" is not necessarily the same as "What the customer really wants" (Philips Electronics).

Customer satisfaction is not something that you achieve then tick off on your "things to do" list – it is about continuous improvement throughout the whole organization. But in today's quest for highly advanced, up to the minute customer service, some of the fundamentals appear to be brushed aside. Fundamentals such as what the customer actually wants, for example.

Perhaps it is time to go back to basics. To actually ask the consumer instead of taking answers for granted. Do they want high-tech, electronically run call centres that reduce costs and cut queuing time or would they rather wait for longer in order to hear a human voice? Do customers want to see facts or advertisements (or both!) on your Web site?

Initially, there are four key issues to address:

1. 1.

   Which products/services do we provide? Define the most important product or service as concretely as possible. Indicate specifically what you are really doing as a supplier.

2. 2.

   Who are our customers? It is important to understand the entire chain of customers, both internal and external. Consider employees from different departments as customers of each other. In order to identify their consumers, Hewlett-Packard devised an internal customer checklist, asking questions such as; who are my customers? What do they need? What is my product/service? Does it meet consumer expectation? They also created a problem solving methodology:

3. 3.
   • •

     select the quality issue;

   • •

     write an issue statement;

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     identify the process;

   • •

     draw a flow chart;

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     select a process performance measure;

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     conduct a cause and effect analysis;

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     collect and analyze the data;

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     identify the major causes of the quality;

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     plan for improvements;

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     take the corrective action;

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     collect and analyze the data again;

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     are the objectives met?

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     if yes, document and standardize the change.

4. 4.

   What do our customers want, what are their requirements? This is where communication comes to the fore. Surveys (usually in the form of questionnaires) play a useful part in ascertaining exactly what your customers think of your existing products and what they want to see improving. Philips Electronics in 1994 used the following as starting blocks when formulating their questions:

5. 5.
   • •

     Ask questions which can lead to action. You have to be able to do something with the reply.

   • •

     Ask answerable questions. The customer must be able to know the answer to the question.

   • •

     Ask clear questions. The customer should not be in doubt about the meaning or the intention of the question. Be specific. Do not ask complicated questions which require more than one sentence.

   • •

     Avoid too much detail. You can always ask a number of customers after the survey has been completed to give you some additional clarification.

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     Ask questions which have only a limited number of answers. It allows the customer to answer quickly and accurately.

   • •

     The customer must consider the questions relevant. Do not include a specific subject which is of less importance to the customer in a customer satisfaction survey.

   • •

     Ask the customer about his overall satisfaction. For example: consider all these aspects, what is your overall satisfaction with the suppliers we have discussed here?

   • •

     The last question is for the customer. At the end of the survey, always ask which subject the customer has missed in the survey which he feels is important.

   • •

     Keep it short. Answering all the questions should not take more than 15 minutes. If you make the list longer, then customers may become irritable and rush through the answers.

   Be prepared for the number of complaints when processing your questionnaire but do not take criticism personally. See these complaints as a positive thing; a chance to learn from mistakes and improve the process so that it will not happen again. In business terms, ignorance is not bliss – it is a sure-fire route to failure.

6. 6.

   Is it measurable? There are a number of crucial but potentially painful questions you can use as a checklist in order to measure the success of your customer service initiative. Some will appear as simply common sense, others require more scrutiny. Here are just a few.

Customer satisfaction measurement

Customers

• •

  Do you know who your customers are and how many customers you have?

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  Do you listen effectively to all your customers?

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  Do you regularly make up an inventory of all the needs and expectations of your customers?

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  Are complaints replied to within two days and solved within one week?

• •

  Do you make recommendations to customers about the products or devices that best suit their needs?

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  Do you know what the costs are when you lose a customer?

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  Do you regularly organize meetings with customer groups to learn about their needs, wants, ideas, and complaints?

Leadership

• •

  As a manager, do you know how many complaints are received yearly?

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  Is there commitment at top-management for customer orientation?

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  Does management set a good example with regard to customer friendly behaviour?

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  Is management at all times available to the customer?

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  Does customer satisfaction also belong to the evaluation criteria of management?

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  Does top management also personally handle complaints of customers?

Policy

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  Is customer satisfaction part of your organization's vision?

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  Is the customer satisfaction policy continuously communicated to all employees?

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  Do you involve your customers with the execution of improvement processes in your company?

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  Do you have an up-to-date databank in which all characteristics of your customers are registered?

Products/services and processes

• •

  Are products delivered within the period expected by the customer?

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  Is the phone in your organization answered within three rings in more than 90 per cent of cases?

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  Did you appoint process owners for controlling processes?

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  Do supporting departments within your organization guarantee the quality of the work they deliver?

Human resource management

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  Do you have an introduction program in which new employees are also educated concerning the importance of satisfied customers?

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  Are customer orientation and continuous work towards improvement criteria for promotion?

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  Do you stimulate your employees to generate ideas about increasing customer satisfaction?

• •

  Are the employees' interest and the interest of the customer related?

Asking these questions will not reveal all the answers, but it is a start down the road to providing genuine, quality, customer-oriented customer service.

This is a shortened version of "75 painful questions about your customer satisfaction".

Rampersad, H. (2001), "75 painful questions about your customer satisfaction", The TQM Magazine, Vol. 13 No. 5.