Customer Satisfaction

1
Customer Satisfaction Retention

• Dr. Syed M. Ahmed
• Florida International University
• Miami, FL, USA

2
Major Topics

• Understanding who is a customer
• Understanding Customer Defined Quality
• Identifying External Customer Needs
• Identifying Internal Customer Needs
• Communicating with Customers
• Instituting Quality Function Deployment
• Customer Satisfaction Process
• Customer Defined Values
• Customer Value Analysis
• Customer Retention
• Establishing a Customer Focus
• Recognizing the Customer Driven Organization
• Value Perception and Customer Loyalty
• Guaspari on Customer Satisfaction

3
Understanding who is a customer
Fig 1. Traditional View of Suppliers Customers
Showing that Customers and Suppliers are Strictly
External Entities.
Fig 2. Contemporary View of Suppliers Customers
Showing that Employees are Suppliers Customers
to each other.
4
Understanding Customer Defined Quality

• Giorgio Merli makes the following points about
  Customer Defined Quality
• The Customer must be the Organizations top
  priority.
• Reliable Customers are the most important
  customers.
• Customer Satisfaction is ensured by producing
  high-quality products.
• Scholtes describes that
• Quality Leadership begins with Customer
• The key to establishing Customer Focus
• Putting Employees in touch with customers and
  Empowering those Employees to act as necessary to
  satisfy customers.

5
Identifying External Customer Needs

• The goal should be to exceed customer
  expectations, not merely meet them.
• Reliable information should be collected to know
  what they need.
• This strategy can be used to identify potential
  improvement projects.

Fig 3. Scholtes Six-Step Strategy for
Identifying Customer Needs
6
Identifying Internal Customer Needs

• It is a process of ensuring that
• Employees (at Individual interaction level) and
  Departments (Unit Interaction) communicate their
  needs to one another continually.
• This Communication should be encouraged and
  facilitated.
• Mechanisms of Improving Communication
• Quality Circles
• Self Managed Teams
• Cross Departmental Teams
• Improvement Teams
• Training

7
Communicating with Customers

• Customers needs do not remain static.
• Continual Communication with Customer is
  Essential in a Competitive Market Place.
• Know your Customers Operations
• Following are few benefits which Companies gain
  by doing so
• Product Enhancements
• Improved Productivity
• Internal Improvements

8
Instituting Quality Function Deployment

• Quality Function Deployment (QFD)
• It was developed to ensure that products entering
  production would fully satisfy the needs of their
  customers by
• Building in the necessary Quality levels.
• QFD allows for the systematic incorporation of
  customer needs, Production Capabilities and all
  other relevant parameters into Product
  Development.

9
Customer Satisfaction Process

• Customer focus is more than just sending out
  surveys.
• The Process is as follows
• Determine the customers and their attributes.
• Arrange these attributes and determine Customers
  level of satisfaction with each of these.
• Tie results of Customer-feedback and develop
  Performance-Metrics.
• Implement measures at the lowest possible level.
• Work on those processes which have high attribute
  value.
• Update Customer Input and feedback on a Continual
  Basis.
• Maintain Open, Continual Communication with all
  stakeholders.
• Aggregate metrics organization-wide into a format
  for management review.

10
Customer Defined Values

• The Value of a Product or Service is the sum of a
  customers perceptions of the following factors
• Product/Service Quality
• Service provided by the Organization
• The Organizations Personnel
• The Organizations Image
• Selling Price of the Product/Service
• Overall Cost of the Product/Service.

11
Customer Value Analysis

• The Process used to determine what is important
  for customers is called Customer Value Analysis
  (CVA).
• It consists of
• Determining what attributes Customers Value Most
• Rate the Relative Importance of the Attributes
• Assess your Organizations Performance Relative
  to the Prioritized list of attributes
• Ask Customers to rate all the attributes of your
  Product/Service against the same attributes of a
  Competitors Product/Service
• Repeat the Process Periodically

12
Customer Retention

• To retain Customers over the long term
• Organizations must turn them into Partners and
  Proactively seek their Input.
• The following strategies can help Organizations
  go beyond just satisfying Customers to Retaining
  them over the long term.
• Be Proactive Get Out in Front of Customer
  Complaints
• Collect Both Registered and Unregistered
  Complaints

13
Establishing a Customer Focus

• Companies that have successfully established a
  customer focus share a number of common
  characteristics such as
• Vision, Commitment and Climate
• Alignment with Customers
• Willingness to find and Eliminate Customers
  Problems
• Use of Customer Information
• Reaching out to Customers
• Competence, Capability and Empowerment of People
• Continuous Improvement of Products and Processes

14
Recognizing the Customer Driven Organization

• A customer Driven Organization can be
  recognized by the following characteristics
• Reliability
• Assurance
• Tangibles
• Empathy
• Responsiveness
• Quality Professionals look for the following
  management factors
• Internal Support
• Use of Knowledge
• Use of Metrics
• Communication

15
Value Perception Customer Loyalty

• Companies work hard to build Customer Loyalty.
• The goal is to keep Customer Onboard for long
  term.
• Value Perception
• Value Results Expectations
• Thus there is no perceived value if an
  organization simply meets customer expectations.
• Customer Loyalty implies a personal bond that
  transcends the business relationship.
• Customer stay with an Organization not out of
  loyalty but because they prefer to do business
  with it.

16
Guaspari on Customer Satisfaction

• Guaspari says that Customer Satisfaction is a
  function of pleasing the customer, not meeting
  specifications.
• The Customer Supplier relationship is a
  partnership.

17
Questions/Queries