Hi,

I've been searching around the site a bit, but I can't find anything that answers my particular problem.

We are small telecom contracting company sending people to install and integrate equipment for major telecom manufacturing and service companies across North and South America. The problem we are experiencing, is that once we send the person out, we get very little (if any) feedback from our customer. One of our processes is to conduct performance reviews of our employees and subcontractors, and some customers comply, and will answer questions for us, but one of our major customers has told us that he will not do that and to not contact the other managers either - if there is a problem we will hear about it. Anyway, how can we measure our service performance and customer satisfaction without any feedback from our customer? PS - we have tried surveys etc, and they are never responded to.

:thanx:

Hi,

I've been searching around the site a bit, but I can't find anything that answers my particular problem.

We are small telecom contracting company sending people to install and integrate equipment for major telecom manufacturing and service companies across North and South America. The problem we are experiencing, is that once we send the person out, we get very little (if any) feedback from our customer. One of our processes is to conduct performance reviews of our employees and subcontractors, and some customers comply, and will answer questions for us, but one of our major customers has told us that he will not do that and to not contact the other managers either - if there is a problem we will hear about it. Anyway, how can we measure our service performance and customer satisfaction without any feedback from our customer? PS - we have tried surveys etc, and they are never responded to.

:thanx:No News is Good News. One way might be to trend your customer complaints. Normalize it somehow (shipment quantity or sales orders) and report on it periodically.

That might work, thanks! We already record customer complaints as a problem report, so we just need to make better use of that data.

Wouldn't repeat business be considered as positive customer feedback? As Al said, No News Is Good News, and continued customer loyalty is also a good thing. :bigwave:

While complaints are a form of measurement, there are some issues with them:

For every customer that complains there are many who do not.
This is a measurement of customer DIS-satisfaction


What is the survey like that you use? Long? Cumbersome? Many customers don't wish to fill out something that is long. Pick out a few key areas and ask them to rate you on that and, if possible, rate your competitor (they don't need to say who the competitor is).

Or ask something generic like "How may we better meet your needs?" or "If we needed to improve in one area, what would you like it to be?"

Sometimes incentives may help the return rate...example : all submissions will be entered into a draw for a tax donation of $xxx.

You could always call up the customer and ask a few questions. Some people prefer the one-on-one means of communication. Or the person in the field could ask the questions before they leave.

We used to have a "school" where once a year we would invite some customers to our site. They had the opportunity to learn abour our company, our processes and our people. Our people had the opportunity to meet the customers and understand our impact in the real world. It was a win-win. Towards the end of the 1.5 day event, we would issue two short surveys about the "school" and about our products/services.

Granted, surveys tend to be emotional and if everyone is feeling good from "school" our results may have been skewed somewhat.

Our survey was 10 questions max, so nothing long or cumbersome at all. We were trying phone calls and some customers respond well, and others told us not to contact them at all. (We have 2 major companies as customers (plus a few smaller scale customers), but actually deal with several contacts within each company).

We do talk to the person in field both when starting the project and at the end (several assignments are actually ongoing placements with a customer manager moving from site to site, so we keep regular contact with those people), but sometimes we just don't get very much information. Since we send our workers to the customer's site (where the equipment is installed), we don't have a "site" for customers to visit - our main office is 6 people (managers and admin staff), so they probably wouldn't learn much about us this way. We are in Canada and our customers' offices are in the US, so that is an issue as well. We do send an account manager to meet face to face with our customers at least once per year though, and we try to combine that to a visit to a site where some of our people are working. This is too costly to do very often though.

The only way to measure customer satisfaction ("customer perceptions," in the language of ISO 9001) is through customer feedback. All other measures are a couple of steps removed from customer satisfaction. Repeat business just means one of 3 things a) there were no other suppliers, b) the customer was too busy to look for other suppliers, or c) the customer was happy with your products. Absence of complaints means one of 3 very similar things a) the customer stopped using your company and you never heard about it, b) the customer decided it wasn't worth their time to complain, or c) the customer was happy with your products. Remember that 8.2.1 of ISO 9001 uses the term "perceptions." You've got to ask customers what they think in order to get perceptions.

There are some very easy and effective ways to capture customer feedback. That's the direction I would go.

Craig

Hi,

I've been searching around the site a bit, but I can't find anything that answers my particular problem.

We are small telecom contracting company sending people to install and integrate equipment for major telecom manufacturing and service companies across North and South America. The problem we are experiencing, is that once we send the person out, we get very little (if any) feedback from our customer. One of our processes is to conduct performance reviews of our employees and subcontractors, and some customers comply, and will answer questions for us, but one of our major customers has told us that he will not do that and to not contact the other managers either - if there is a problem we will hear about it. Anyway, how can we measure our service performance and customer satisfaction without any feedback from our customer? PS - we have tried surveys etc, and they are never responded to.



This is a good question. Now... this is coming from a former service technician; so my answer is somewhat biased.

One of the single most-valuable resources for an organization is the service technicians that go to a company to fix things.

1. They are the front-line interface to the customer.
2. They are excellent, back door salespeople. Saying, they come through the back door, and you tend to gain a bit of credence with customers when they know you care about fixing their equipment and keeping them running.
3. Most important, they are present the entire time through the experience.

A good service manager is worth their weight in gold. They can field inquiries/ questions/ problems from the technicians, without them feeling intimidated. Opportunities for improvement can be gleaned from them. Proper training can allow the technician to stay long enough to assure the problem is fixed. Also, empowering the technician to check back with the customer with a phone call to make sure everything is good. But you will want to leave a toll free number for the customer to call should there be a problem with the technician.

Now, note the caveat. Technicians do not need to be burdened with too much paperwork and the like. But they have so much knowledge and ideas for improvement. Most people just don't bother asking.

I really like the idea of a toll-free number.

The conversations between the field technician and the customer do not need to be formal. But as soon as the technician returns to his/her vehicle, a report should be written up highlighting key points such as areas the customer liked, ares for improvement and in some cases the conversation might even lead to future possible business opportunities (or a heads-up that business for you might be slowing down).

Complaints don't measure satisfaction, they measure "dissatisfaction".

Complaints aren't an accurate measure of satisfaction. Have you ever been so upset over service, a meal or anthing else that you didn't complain and just never went back?

Let's say the (meaning all) 100 customers a new restaurant gets are polled when leaving:

50 don't answer and just walk out
45 say the food, service and everything is OK
5 say the place stinks

Out of 100 customers polled they have 5% dissatisfaction, so therefore 95% were satisfied? Not hardly.

What about the surveys themselves?
What's the guarantee they are going to the right person?
What's the guarantee the information placed in the survey is accurate?
What's the guarantee the survey has been effectively designed?

Customer satisfaction is a science unto itself.

Such good responses to the question! :applause: I especially agree that:

Good sales people can be trained and asked to monitor certain process performance aspects, as well as the product/service design. A short conversation can get a lot of information if the questions are asked in a personable way.

We shouldn't rely on repeat sales data because there are many different reasons why a customer would buy here or there. Thus the data are only results; they are not really even indicators.

There is another thread on the responsiveness subject going on here (http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=25340).

....
Let's say the (meaning all) 100 customers a new restaurant gets are polled when leaving:

50 don't answer and just walk out
45 say the food, service and everything is OK
5 say the place stinks

Out of 100 customers polled they have 5% dissatisfaction, so therefore 95% were satisfied? Not hardly.



Right on, Randy. Further:

Of the 95, a portion of them don't really have any allegiance to anything. Your business is near the vet where their Fido gets checkups, so they only drop by once a month anyway. If the restaurant across the street has a coupon, most of that portion will go over there.

Of the 5 that were not satisfied, 3 of them are never satisfied with anything 90% of the time :tg:

45 said it was OK, but... 10 of them really weren't, but just did not want to say.

What you really want to know is how many of the 95 will return, and what did they like/not like. To me, the opportunity here is measuring what is important to the organization at the time the product/service is being consumed. Depending on the product/service of interest, additional brainstorming sessions may yield more choices.

I measure customer satisfaction by the lunch they give me and I have some very satisfied customers.:lol:

Thanks guys...See ya'll in the next couple of months

We have the same problem, can't get customer feedback.

We are always getting complaints from our survaillance auditors that we aren't getting enough feedback from our customers. We've told the auditors that we send a one page (5 question survey) to our main customers, which consists of about 50 customers, but we're lucky to get back 10 surveys. We can't force our customers to reply. We figure that if we don't hear anything bad and the customers keep returning, then we're obviously doing a good job. The auditors responses are always the same, you need more actual feedback. :mad: So I tell the auditor, if we force the customer to do the stupid survey, then we risk losing the customer...sorry, but your stupid personal requirement is NOT that important to us.

So there really isn't much you can do, at least that we've found. We ask for the feedback and we keep track of those that give it.

Here you go, and this one will hit like a wet sack of "S"

Have someone of "importance" in your company directly call someone of "equal importance" in their company and specifically ask "How are we doing?" & "What can we do better?" Make a record of everything and go for it. No emails, blogs or text messages, a real person-to-person conversation.

The "importance" relates to a real, deal decision maker who can talk "for and on behalf of" and not a 14th level gopher, assistant, or whatever.

Oh yeah, you can also get evidence of management committment and communication out of this.

Thanks for all the replies. It does give us something to think about. Our account manager is on the phone with customers quite regularly, and I'm sure some feedback does come out of these calls, it's just not recorded. If we can get this feedback recorded, then we should be able to do something with it!

Thanks for all the replies. It does give us something to think about. Our account manager is on the phone with customers quite regularly, and I'm sure some feedback does come out of these calls, it's just not recorded. If we can get this feedback recorded, then we should be able to do something with it!

Yes, indeed. Doesn't have to be recorded (if you mean via tape recorder, which some customers might not like). But even if you could capture it in some way as notes/entry in a simple spreadsheet etc, rather than just letting it vanish into the ether entirely (where an auditor really cannot audit it, you see). I imagine the account manager does get feedback (I'd be worried if not), so the question is how does the system (not just the AM) capture that for review, analysis, & possibly action?

Also, do check the other current thread, where I posted the Note proposed to be added in the 2008 release.

That is what I meant by recording. Just making a note of it on a spreadsheet or in our database or something. It is something to bring up in a staff meeting anyway.

Thanks for all the replies. It does give us something to think about. Our account manager is on the phone with customers quite regularly, and I'm sure some feedback does come out of these calls, it's just not recorded. If we can get this feedback recorded, then we should be able to do something with it!In order to go back later and know if the satisfaction is enduring, or if the problem was truly fixed, there should be a record.

Is there something that stops the account manager from noting it in the account's file? This could be a really big help in follow up, but I caution it does not address the whole-organizaiton progress in customer satisfaction: the process/program effectiveness. Unless you have just a few customers, describing how these individual notes add up to a whole result--and allow trending for improvement--could prove tricky.

I'd like to add that something should be recorded for the unlikely event that this account manager is not available. As an auditor I ask: "Suppose you win the Powerball and decide to quit working. How do we make sure someone else can take over for you and serve the customer as well as you have done?"

In order to go back later and know if the satisfaction is enduring, or if the problem was truly fixed, there should be a record.

Is there something that stops the account manager from noting it in the account's file? This could be a really big help in follow up, but I caution it does not address the whole-organizaiton progress in customer satisfaction: the process/program effectiveness. Unless you have just a few customers, describing how these individual notes add up to a whole result--and allow trending for improvement--could prove tricky.

I'd like to add that something should be recorded for the unlikely event that this account manager is not available. As an auditor I ask: "Suppose you win the Powerball and decide to quit working. How do we make sure someone else can take over for you and serve the customer as well as you have done?"

I would say that laziness is what stops the account manager from recording it, if I were to be completely honest. We do only have a few customers, but several contacts within each customer organization. It makes things a bit interesting to say the least. Anyway, something to be discussed. I do get frustrated since the only buy in to the system comes from me and top management. It is like pulling teeth to get cooperation from everyone else, they view as something the customer requires, and any extra form to be filled out is seen as a waste of time.

I just realized that one of our quality objective measurements may also be seen as a customer satisfaction measurement. The "product" we send the customer is the person to install or integrate the equipment. We measure the percentage of successful deployments (successful meaning that the person we sent matched the customer's requirements and they successfully completed the work). An unsuccessful deployment is one where the person does not meet the customer requirements (there are several reasons this could be), or the person fails to complete the work for any reason (we've have people quit without notice to us or the customer - this is a failed deployment).