The two objectives of business process improvement are to improve customer satisfaction and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the business. The former is not always easy to achieve and there is very little guidance in how to achieve it.
A major problem in improving the satisfaction of the customer with your products or services is that very often the customer's perception of their requirements is not what they display in practice and it is not easy to determine accurately what it is that the customer is actually looking for.
Determining Customer Requirements
Determining the requirements of customers can be a challenging task since they will not generally give you a straight answer to a straight question. Stock questions tend to get stock answers, and if you want to know what people really think and feel, you have to observe them and take note of what they value. They might believe that they conform to a specific behavioural pattern, but their actions actually show them not to do so.
What do they talk about? What do they get involved in? Do they spend time with their family? Do they go out with friends a lot? By observing their behaviour you can find out a lot about people and what values drive them. This applies to most people, including your customers. Observe them over a period of time and try to find out what is important to them. This might in turn give you a clue as to what they expect of you.
Ask them a question and they will tell what they believe they should tell you, but you can be pretty sure that what they feel and what they do will be different. Their actions will be different to their answers, but what you are looking for is the truth of how they really feel and think. You don’t want to know what they think they should value, but what they actually do value. You can get that information through observation.
Ask them questions and you are liable to find out what they would like to be rather than how they actually are. Ask them if the family comes first and they will say yes, but is the football game more important than the weekend fishing with the kids? If the functionality and looks of their new equipment are as important as they say they are why did they purchase the cheapest or the easiest to clean?
Attain Success By Exceeding Customer Expectations
Because of this, you will have to be imaginative and innovative in how you find out what your customers’ expectations really are. Without knowing that, you will be unable to meet these expectations, let alone exceed them. There are ways in which you can do that, such as by observing them over a period time and noting how they interact with certain products or services.
The Performance Measurement Group carried out a survey, and discovered that businesses with effective methods of collecting this type of feedback from customers generally tended to be more successful that those that did not. By observing and listening and finding out exactly what customers were thinking it is possible to judge what they want of you and to provide it.
It is also very important to determine your customer expectations in the design phase, and being proactive in preventing problems from occurring saves a great deal of time and money in resolving them after they have occurred.
Hearing the Customer’s Voice
You will benefit if you make the effort to hear the voice of the customer. Innovation in getting the right answers will pay rewards, although it is difficult to get these answers. You must talk to them to begin with, but should convert their answers to features and then into customer requirements.
By carrying out regular reviews with your team you will be more likely to determine if the way your customers present themselves actually match what they do. If you belong to a large company, employees can be used as trial customers, but in real life it is very difficult to get customers to fill in surveys and forms. A good way of observing their behaviour is to use beta products and prototypes to observe users in real time. Observation of real behaviour is much more valuable than questions in establishing a customer’s needs and expectations.
You can observe people in their own environment, using a good cross-section of employees such as engineers, technical personnel and supervision. Don’t simply ask customers what they want – frequently they will have no idea what they want, and will give you an answer that they think will satisfy you. Observe your market at work and they will unwittingly inform you of what they expect of you.