Customer excellence is a subject on which everyone has an opinion. Many studies have been conducted to understand its numerous interrelated characteristics. In its simplest form, customer excellence is about keeping promises to your customers. This implies that an organization’s strategic goals and objectives are well defined and are efficiently executed against those goals and objectives. Also, integral to cus- tomer excellence is the necessity that your products and services be designed to meet customer expectations. Expectations are conveyed to the customer by marketing and advertising as well as through other customer touch points. This implies that
customer needs and perceived value elements have been well defined, as shown in Figure 3.1 to Figure 3.5. It is also important that the process and operational design at the organizational–customer interface must reliably deliver value. This does not imply that an organization must do everything a customer asks if there is not an implied or explicit promise to do so; however, declining customer requests should be very carefully considered by an organization. Also, process workflows should be designed to satisfy customers by market segment and based on their expected value.
Table 2.9 shows ten key steps that are necessary to deploy customer excellence. The first step is for the senior management of an organization to develop a strategy consistent with the long-term goals and objectives of their organization. A sec- ond, and often poorly executed, next step is to proactively obtain information on customer needs and value elements by market segment and translate these into internal specifications using translation tools and methods, including prioritiza- tion matrices. Translation tools and methods include various types of surveys to capture the VOC. A common prioritization matrix includes the quality function
table 2.9 10 key Steps to deploy Customer excellence
1. Develop an organizational strategy to deploy customer excellence with senior management.
2. Proactively obtain information on customer needs and value elements by market segment, and translate these into internal specifications.
3. Meet all basic needs, become best in class for all performance needs, and discover excitement needs.
4. Design systems to provide services and products as promised without defects, on time, and at target costs.
5. Ensure the process design embodies the VOC at every step. This includes all procedures, policies, and training.
6. Measure both the VOC and internally related specifications, and continuously improve all metrics.
7. Understand the difference between customer service and customer relations, and be good at both.
8. Hire the right people who are customer-friendly.
9. Provide people with tools, methods, and training to be successful. 10. Continuously increase customer value by increasing convenience and
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deployment template, which is often called the house of quality. The third critical step is to actually meet the basic and performance needs expected by the customer. After these two needs have been met, an organization can determine the customer’s excitement needs to truly deliver an exciting and differentiated customer experi- ence. Step 4 of Table 2.9 requires that an organization’s operational systems are capable of providing products and services as promised without defects, on time, and at target cost levels. Unfortunately, many organizations poorly design their delivery systems or fail to monitor and control them, and hence fail Step 4. At every step, the process design must embody the VOC. This includes all procedures, policies, and training. Step 7 requires that the VOC be quantitatively measured both externally and internally, and continuously improved over time. Organiza- tions must also understand the difference between customer services and customer relations and be good at both because they require different execution systems. Step 8 requires that organizations hire people who are customer-friendly. Entire books have been written on this subject. Suffice it to say, service workers must know their customers and how to satisfy their needs, meet value expectations, and enjoy working with customers. Step 9 requires that people be provided with the training, tools, and methods to be successful. Finally, step 10 shows that it is important to continuously increase the perceived value of your products and services. Value can be increased by reducing cost and cycle time and improving the utility, functional- ity, and quality of your products and services over time.
Summary
Operational improvements depend on making changes to process workflows. This implies that new systems must be deployed through the various workflows within a process, and people must be trained to use new tools and methods to change the way they complete their work tasks. However, change is very difficult, at both an organizational and personal level, for many reasons, ranging from cul- tural barriers within an organization to individual perceptions and behavior. It has been found through numerous studies that successful change initiatives have key success factors. These have been well documented and discussed by John P. Kotter and other researchers. Several of the key concepts of this chapter are listed in Table 2.10. The first success factor includes the identification of financial and operational performance gaps to make a business case for process improvement. It is easy to gain support for an initiative that directly increases organizational productivity. Second initiatives and their toolsets should be matched to business opportunities. In other words, initiatives should be resourced differentially by an organization based on strategic considerations and anticipated business benefits. It is also important that initiatives be directed and managed by senior executives in the form of an executive steering committee. Operational initiatives should follow
a well-recognized format that has a well-documented deployment history. As an example, Lean, Six Sigma, and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and similar initiatives have a long history of success as well as failure, which can be studied by an organization to increase the probability of its initiative’s success. It is also important that reward and recognition systems, including an organization’s bonus and incentive systems, are aligned in a way to achieve an initiative’s goals and objectives. Simple and consistent communications should be made of an initiative relative to its deployment status at every level of the organization. People must also be trained to use appropriate toolsets to analyze and improve process workflows at an operational and work task level. Nothing promotes change as well as success. For this reason, it is important that projects be completed on a continuing basis and produce business benefits according to schedule to build momentum for organiza- tional change. Finally, as in any set of activities, it is important to make modifica- tions to the deployment based on new information.
table 2.10 key Concepts to accelerate organizational Change
1. Identify financial and operational performance gaps to make a business case for process improvement.
2. Determine the required initiatives that must be deployed as well as their toolsets to close the performance gaps.
3. Form an executive steering committee to guide initiative deployments to ensure goals and objectives are met and resources are aligned to business opportunities.
4. Deploy at an operational level using Lean, Six Sigma, and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and at strategic levels through design, IT, human resources, and the customer, but prioritized and sequenced as necessary. 5. Align reward and recognition systems, including the organization’s bonus
and incentive systems, to achieve the initiative’s goals and objectives. 6. Develop communication systems to promote change at every level of the
organization.
7. Train people to use appropriate toolsets to analyze and improve process workflows at an operational and work task level.
8. Complete projects on a continuing basis and according to schedule to build momentum for change by showing business benefits.
Organizational Change in a Competitive World n 55
Suggested reading
Sanjiv Augustine. (2005). Managing Agile Projects. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Rosabeth Moss Kanter. (1983). The Change Masters: Innovation & Entrepreneurship in the
American Corporation. Simon and Schuster, New York.
John P. Kotter. (1996). Leading Change. Harvard Business School Press, Boston.
John P. Kotter and James L. Heskett. (1992). Corporate Culture and Performance. The Free Press, New York.
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