Management Consulting and Training - International Management Technologies, Inc.
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Voice of the Customer
-- Background --
The expressed requirements and expectations of customers relative to products or services, as documented and disseminated to the members of the providing organization.
Reprinted with permission from Quality Progress magazine.
© 2002 American Society for Quality
LINKS TO MORE INFORMATION AND ACTION YOU CAN TAKE:
- Training The 12 Voices of the Customer Workshop
- Facilitated Session(s)/Consultation: Please call us at 941-907-0666 to discuss.
- Articles Article 4 – “Creating Total Customer Satisfaction: A Service Quality Strategy That Will Work For You "
- Teaching Tools C3 DVD Series
- Reference Text "Creating a Customer-Centered Culuture: Leadership in Quality, Innovation & Speed" (Quality Press) Chapter 3, Defining Customer Expectations
-- With C3 Inside --
The notion that we should listen to “the voice of the customer” is well-meaning, but an insult to our intelligence. Everyone knows there is no such thing as the customer. This necessarily means there must be more than one voice to hear.
This insight is important because it leads to another set of questions, such as:
- How do you identify who “the customers” really are?
- What three (3) roles can customers play?
- Which customer role carries the most power to determine or change the design of a product or service and why does this matter?
- What should happen when you hear conflicting voices?
- What are you to do when they don’t actually articulate exactly what they want?
- What are the critical three (3) questions that will uncover what they want?
- How do you translate subjective priorities such as “easy to use” into objective criteria?
- Is it possible that what they say is really not what they want?
- Is there a simple way to prioritize their answers?
- Of the three expectations customers can have, which are the most important: performance, perception or outcome?
- What role should satisfaction surveys play?
Here are just two answers every practitioner learns at the start of any C3 training, initiative or voice-of-the-customer (VoC) project with C3 inside:
- Of the three roles a customer can play (end-user, broker or fixer), brokers often have disproportionate power over the design of a product. But end-users always get satisfaction in the long run; if not by you, by your competitor. Detroit automakers are the poster-children for this truth.
- There are three kinds of expectations a customer wants satisfied: performance expectations, perception expectations and outcome expectations. Desired outcomes are the most important to satisfy but are usually not articulated or measured by the producer.
One of the top desired outcomes wanted by end-users of both the healthcare industry and healthcare insurers is “good health”. This is what is stated in the voice of the end-user. These industries have not demonstrated a consensus definition of what this means, that they understand it nor that have they developed useful measures of it. But they have defined and do measure key undesired outcomes such as death and morbidity. Is the absence of such undesired outcomes “good health”? We think not. Shall we conclude that folks in these industries are stupid? No, just not yet big C3 practitioners! As the following comments from C3 advocates indicate, change is possible once the insight occurs:
- “As the health system evolves, it is easy to lose track of who the real customer is. I was awash in new ideas about how I, individually as a doctor, and the health system I am in, could improve practice.” - Eric Schned, M.D., Park Nicollet Medical Center
- “I appreciated your challenging, thoughtful session. I am delighted that this health care professional audience adapted enthusiastically to your message. Your keynote created enthusiasm and focus for developing or expanding a customer-centered approach to delivering health care.” - Steven Richards, M.D., Vice President, Blue Plus, Blue Cross and Blue Shield
- “I want to be sure you heard from me what critical work we all did during your session last week. We are already beginning to incorporate the thinking of your C3 model into our efforts in the Mental Health Service. Thanks so much for a superlative seminar.” - Rich Goepfert, East Region Chief, Mental Health Services, Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound
The above illustration could just as well be applied to many other kinds of enterprise. One reason an organization would want to embark on a C3 VoC project is to create new awareness about customer priorities. Doing so should enable (1) dramatically improved satisfaction, (2) competitive differentiation, (3) enhanced innovation and (4) lower costs.
C3 is not the only approach to uncovering the voice of the customer. But of all the approaches we are familiar with, here are the ones that require and unambiguously demonstrate how to (a) segment customers along the three roles, (b) differentiate outcomes from performance and perception expectations, (3) stratify outcomes, from tactical to strategic and (4) embed outcome definition and measurement into product design and innovation:
- Design For Six Sigma (DFSS) – NO
- ISO 9000 – NO
- Kano Model – NO
- Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) – NO
- Quality Function Deployment (QFD) – NO
- Traditional Six Sigma – NO
- C3 - YES!
If you don’t know who the most important customers are and how to identify and measure their most important priorities, how successful can your VoC initiative be?
The C3 system answers every one of the above questions. Every answer is unambiguous, which means your whole organization can agree on what to improve first. This is helpful for both corrective actions and product design. In fact, with C3 inside your VoC initiative, you really can do it right the first time.
There are a number of common assumptions about customer expectations that can be fatal. These unsupported beliefs and constraining assumptions are called vital lies. They permit us to be comfortable, even though our ship may be taking on water and there is every reason to begin bailing the boat. Here are a few common vital lies, relevant to the voices of customers and their level of satisfaction:
- Customers speak in tongues; it’s impossible for anyone to understand them
- We don’t get many complaints so we know customers are satisfied
- Customers don’t know what they want
- We know what customers want
- Our performance measures confirm our excellence
With C3 inside your organization, all these vital lies are replaced with insights unavailable elsewhere.
LINKS TO MORE INFORMATION AND ACTION YOU CAN TAKE:
- Training The 12 Voices of the Customer Workshop
- Facilitated Session(s)/Consultation: Please call us at 941-907-0666 to discuss.
- Articles Article 4 – “Creating Total Customer Satisfaction: A Service Quality Strategy That Will Work For You "
- Teaching Tools C3 DVD Series
- Reference Text "Creating a Customer-Centered Culuture: Leadership in Quality, Innovation & Speed" (Quality Press) Chapter 3, Defining Customer Expectations
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