KPI (Key Performance Indicators) for "Improving Customer Communication"

[Ajit Basrur]

Hi,

We have identified "Improving Customer Communication" as one of our OBJECTIVESand accordingly set lead measures, with targets. The lead measures are -

1. Customer Meeting ratio (ie meet customer at a predefined frequency) and these meetings will be tracked.

2. Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) - send out these CSI survey forms and obtain the satisfaction index.

3. Training Hours - Train each member who will be representing our organization with the customer on technical, organizational information and soft skills.

Does anyone have any other lead measures for this objective and what could be the KPI for this objective ?

Thanks in advance,

 

[harry]

Re: KPI (Key Performance Index) for "Improving Customer Communication"

Hi,

We have identified "Improving Customer Communication" as one of our OBJECTIVESand accordingly set lead measures, with targets. The lead measures are -

1. Customer Meeting ratio (ie meet customer at a predefined frequency) and these meetings will be tracked.................................

I appreciate very much when my suppliers 'Senior Sales/Marketing Manager or sometimes Director' visits once or twice a year. It conveys a strong message - 'We value our business relations and we care about you'. Such visits are purely to talk to clients, find out if they had any problems and to solve it if necessary. Not many do that.

Tendency is you'll see more orders or increase volumes after such visits.

 

[antoine.dias]

Hi,

We have identified "Improving Customer Communication" as one of our OBJECTIVESand accordingly set lead measures, with targets. The lead measures are -

1. Customer Meeting ratio (ie meet customer at a predefined frequency) and these meetings will be tracked.

2. Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) - send out these CSI survey forms and obtain the satisfaction index.

3. Training Hours - Train each member who will be representing our organization with the customer on technical, organizational information and soft skills.

Does anyone have any other lead measures for this objective and what could be the KPI for this objective ?

Thanks in advance,

Good points so far.

What about :
4. Availability : Improve the availability of persons from your organisation in case of calls ( or any other correspondence ) from the customers.

5. Reaction times : Improve reaction times ( solution included ) in case of questions, orders, complaints, etc.

Best regards,

Antoine

 

[qualitytoughnut - 2010]

Hi,

We have identified "Improving Customer Communication" as one of our OBJECTIVESand accordingly set lead measures, with targets. The lead measures are -

1. Customer Meeting ratio (ie meet customer at a predefined frequency) and these meetings will be tracked.

2. Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) - send out these CSI survey forms and obtain the satisfaction index.

3. Training Hours - Train each member who will be representing our organization with the customer on technical, organizational information and soft skills.

Does anyone have any other lead measures for this objective and what could be the KPI for this objective ?

Thanks in advance,

In my opinion proper CRM is a must to be included in the training.Secondly,you must restrict the number of persons,to deal with specific customer.It is important to decide who deals with whom.Sometimes you may have an expert CRM guy but the specific customer is not comfortable with him.There fore great care is needed in selection of the representative.

 

[Ajit Basrur]

I appreciate very much when my suppliers 'Senior Sales/Marketing Manager or sometimes Director' visits once or twice a year. It conveys a strong message - 'We value our business relations and we care about you'. Such visits are purely to talk to clients, find out if they had any problems and to solve it if necessary. Not many do that.

Tendency is you'll see more orders or increase volumes after such visits.

Thanks Harry, this was identified as an important point from the customer perspective and hence we have included. Hopefully, we get more orders

Good points so far.

What about :
4. Availability : Improve the availability of persons from your organisation in case of calls ( or any other correspondence ) from the customers.

5. Reaction times : Improve reaction times ( solution included ) in case of questions, orders, complaints, etc.

Best regards,

Antoine

Thanks Antoine for additional lead measures but I am looking for one level up ie. the KPI itself which can have all these as lead measures.

In my opinion proper CRM is a must to be included in the training.Secondly,you must restrict the number of persons,to deal with specific customer.It is important to decide who deals with whom.Sometimes you may have an expert CRM guy but the specific customer is not comfortable with him.There fore great care is needed in selection of the representative.

Thanks. Yes, this is the most important aspect. Shall take a note of this.

 

[RoxaneB]

While it's all well and good to have metrics, are there are also plans on how to achieve the goals? If you're talking about improving something, you obviously wish to move from your current state to a future state. It won't happen simply by trying harder or by wishful thinking. Be careful if you wish to add more indicators. Make sure you have the resources to achieve the original ones - this is all part of planning.

 

[Ajit Basrur]

While it's all well and good to have metrics, are there are also plans on how to achieve the goals? If you're talking about improving something, you obviously wish to move from your current state to a future state. It won't happen simply by trying harder or by wishful thinking. Be careful if you wish to add more indicators. Make sure you have the resources to achieve the original ones - this is all part of planning.

Hi Roxane,

Yes. There is a plan to move from current state to a future state. But my question is how do I measure Customer Communication ?

 

[RoxaneB]

Hi Roxane,

Yes. There is a plan to move from current state to a future state. But my question is how do I measure Customer Communication ?

And the plans are aligned with the indicators? I'm simply reminding you not to take on more metrics (and thus improvement initiatives) than your company has resources for.

What do you wish to achieve by communicating with your Customers?

Why communicate with them?

How is communicating with Customers going to help this organization move in the direction it wants to?

These kinds of questions will not only help you select proper metrics, but also to think about the available resources, the required resources and whether there is committment towards the provision of these resources.

All of that being said, I've seen metrics in this area that include:

• Surveys conducted
• Survey results or performance
• Site visits

From there, the results from surveys and visits were communicated to the company so that appropriate action could be taken. It's great to have metrics, after all, but only if you're going to do something with them.

 

[Ajit Basrur]

Thanks to all for inputs

 

[qusys]

Hi Roxane,

Yes. There is a plan to move from current state to a future state. But my question is how do I measure Customer Communication ?

Hi Ajit.
I would like to contribute to your thread.
Did you have in place with the Customer a process to approve PPAP before an order?
Yes if, PPAP could be considered as communication tool. So you should have an index to monitor the unsolved/solved issue with PPAP.
Another index could be the related to the effectiveness of the corrective action in case of an RMA, if the customer was satisfied with the communication sent to fix an eventual quality issue of the product.