Customer Satisfaction – the Key to Better Business

As we come to the end of 2022 organizations may pause to evaluate performance, productivity, and profitability over the past 12 months. Many companies have embraced LEAN (reduction of waste) and focused on eliminating waste from their process flows. However, some have ignored or not addressed the most important aspect of LEAN methodology, which is improvement in the quality of customer satisfaction.

While we know that a polite, gentle reaction to the wrath of our customers may mitigate their immediate upset, it does not alleviate customer dissatisfaction.

What can we do more to ensure customer satisfaction? We would suggest listening to the voice of the customer (VOC), after all, value starts with the customer.

A critical question to answer is: What does the customer value?

- Quality of product/ service?

- Time spent on the transaction?

- Value for money?

- Responsiveness to enquiries?

- Reactiveness to problems?

- Speed?

One way to obtain feedback from the customer is to first look at every step of the process that generates the final product or service and determine the cost of each step. Next, have the customer review each step and let you know if it adds value from the customer’s point of view. To understand what value means (this can change over time), write out an invoice for each step in the process and determine from the customer whether they would be willing to pay for each item on the invoice. If not, that could indicate that the customer sees no value in this step.

Questions we should ask as we evaluate whether a step has value include:

1. Does it fulfill our customers need or preference?

2. Does the process physically change the product or service?

3. Is the process done right the first time?

If the answer is YES to each of the questions above, then the step or process is value added, and has a place in meeting customer satisfaction and organizational objectives.

Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2023!

Bimshire Consulting Inc. is a boutique consultancy firm specializing in end-to-end business process analysis and improvement. We help organizations to move from “good to great” by designing new business models; streamlining and reengineering existing business processes and providing support to change management. We are a team of professionals dedicated to providing creative recommendations to best match our unique business challenges.

www.thebimshiregroup.net