rogerpenna
Quite Involved in Discussions
Customer satisfaction is one of the main pillars of ISO 9001. And it makes sense for most companies. Customers not satisfied will change their providers, stop referrals, etc. And you get broke.
I was wondering about the importance of customer satisfaction for companies which work mainly with government and other public administration entities...
Of course, public biddings change from country to country to country, depending on law.
So I will give you an example of how it works on mine:
- ANY purchase above a few hundred dollars, and any service that public administration must contract, must go through a public bidding process. The public bidding must be announced on a public forum (like official papers, government websites, etc).
- Anyone can participate in the bid process, as long as they meet the requirements of the product, etc.
- Bids cannot be very specific on product or how a service can be done. Meaning, they can´t be specific in a way a single company can do it. Example: we want to make a tunnel with X diameter and Y and Z parameters, which only Elon Musk's Boring Company can make.
- While technical capacity (testified documents proving you have done something similar in scope and size) is used sometimes, MOST biddings are for LOWEST price.
That means... no matter how much quality you deliver to a government customer, next bidding process, you may lose because you don´t have the lowest price. Laws regulate you can´t even do MORE than required. While most customers would be pretty happy for you exceeding their requirements, in public bidding, exceeding requirements may lead to lawsuits.
This article I guess is for the USA
Why Customer Satisfaction Needs to Be a Bigger Priority for Government | Part 1 | Periscope Holdings
"Knowing that customer satisfaction – or a lack thereof – is a major consideration for decision makers when evaluating bids/proposals, every government supplier should act as if this contract were theirs to lose at any time. "
This doesn´t exist in my country. The process is objective and customer satisfaction is subjective. That would lead to many corruption problems.
(broken link removed)
" If you want to retain your current government customers and, even better, secure referrals to other agencies for inclusion in future bids for other contracts"
Again, this makes no sense to us. Doing everything perfect with maximum quality won´t retain our government customers. If anything else, the cost of going the extra mile for customer satisfaction may mean LOSING the next bid and the customer.
As well as referrals. There is no such thing as securing referrals to other agencies. Other agencies won´t call a company for a bidding process. They will publish the bidding process in official state or federal papers (or websites) and companies that see it and decide to take part, will do it.
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Who else here works in companies whose main (or all) customers are government agencies, public administration, etc, and what are your experiences with it, regarding the importance of customer satisfaction, how bidding processes work in your country or area of business, etc?
I was wondering about the importance of customer satisfaction for companies which work mainly with government and other public administration entities...
Of course, public biddings change from country to country to country, depending on law.
So I will give you an example of how it works on mine:
- ANY purchase above a few hundred dollars, and any service that public administration must contract, must go through a public bidding process. The public bidding must be announced on a public forum (like official papers, government websites, etc).
- Anyone can participate in the bid process, as long as they meet the requirements of the product, etc.
- Bids cannot be very specific on product or how a service can be done. Meaning, they can´t be specific in a way a single company can do it. Example: we want to make a tunnel with X diameter and Y and Z parameters, which only Elon Musk's Boring Company can make.
- While technical capacity (testified documents proving you have done something similar in scope and size) is used sometimes, MOST biddings are for LOWEST price.
That means... no matter how much quality you deliver to a government customer, next bidding process, you may lose because you don´t have the lowest price. Laws regulate you can´t even do MORE than required. While most customers would be pretty happy for you exceeding their requirements, in public bidding, exceeding requirements may lead to lawsuits.
This article I guess is for the USA
Why Customer Satisfaction Needs to Be a Bigger Priority for Government | Part 1 | Periscope Holdings
"Knowing that customer satisfaction – or a lack thereof – is a major consideration for decision makers when evaluating bids/proposals, every government supplier should act as if this contract were theirs to lose at any time. "
This doesn´t exist in my country. The process is objective and customer satisfaction is subjective. That would lead to many corruption problems.
(broken link removed)
" If you want to retain your current government customers and, even better, secure referrals to other agencies for inclusion in future bids for other contracts"
Again, this makes no sense to us. Doing everything perfect with maximum quality won´t retain our government customers. If anything else, the cost of going the extra mile for customer satisfaction may mean LOSING the next bid and the customer.
As well as referrals. There is no such thing as securing referrals to other agencies. Other agencies won´t call a company for a bidding process. They will publish the bidding process in official state or federal papers (or websites) and companies that see it and decide to take part, will do it.
-----------------------------
Who else here works in companies whose main (or all) customers are government agencies, public administration, etc, and what are your experiences with it, regarding the importance of customer satisfaction, how bidding processes work in your country or area of business, etc?