Customer Satisfaction
The way most companies do it is to utilize some form of feedback tool, such as surveys etc.
While this does provide you with some information, typically many customers will not take the time to fill out lengthy questionaires thus limiting the input you need to focus on reasonable areas for improvement.
At Honeywell, we take a very proactive approach by looking at the things that customers typically do not like and try to influence those things positively.
Examples of things the customer doesn't like. (in our business)
Cost Overruns
Schedule Slips
Requests for Design Changes
MRB Submittals
Field Failures
Low Customer Acceptance Yields
Ineffective Corrective Actions
Writing Customer Complaints
These type of things vary with the particular industry. The point is that every company knows what makes their customers unhappy.
Make a list of these items, determine Process Ownership responsibilities for these undesireable issues, measure them and work them down.
When these issues are driven down to negledgible or non-existant levels you will see a noticable change in customer satisfaction levels. It is also appropriate to communicate some of these improvement projects with the customer so they know our objectives are to satisfy or delight them.
Hope this helps.
Bob Bonville
