How to Carry Out ?Customer Focus? on All Parts of Management System?

[Sidney Vianna]

Re: How to Carry Out “Customer Focus” on All Parts of Management System?

Dirk, if you really think it is impossible for organizations to satisfy customers with unstated expectations, how do you explain the success of Starbucks, EBay, Southwest Airlines, etc...? Are they just plain lucky?

I reckon that in a b2b (business to business) relationship, unstated requirements handling is different from a b2c approach. However, as others have already mentioned, an organization's ability to take care of customer's unstated expectations differentiates them from the competitors.

If an organization approaches this as: we could care less about our customer's unstated expectations, they really don't care for the customer.

 

[vanputten]

Re: How to Carry Out “Customer Focus” on All Parts of Management System?

I did not say it was impossible to satisfy customers with unstated requirements. I said it is impossible to know all of the unstated requirements. Do you think Starbucks knows all of their customer's unstated requriments and has them on a list? Do they know that my buddy Frank only likes half of the amount of whip cream they put on theur lattes? They know in general what most of the customers require.

I am not implying to not care about unstated requirements. No one can define all of the unstated requirements. We can know many of them or some of them. Unstated requirements change and are dynamic.

Not all Starbucks customers are satisfied all of the time. You cannot line up all of the requirements, add them up, divide them, put them into a formula, and say that you know the customer is satisfied. Satisfaction is a perception and therefore customer focus must try to drive at understanding that perception over time. Cusotmer satisfaction cannot be done at the supplying organiztion, with pencil and paper, a formula, and only calculated once. You have to actually interact with the customer to understand their perception.

One cannot measure satisfaction in an analytical, linear fashion with an equation or forumla. What I am saying is that a customer focus is a focus on the customer's perception of the supplying organization.

 

[Manix]

Re: How to Carry Out “Customer Focus” on All Parts of Management System?

I did not say it was impossible to satisfy customers with unstated requirements. I said it is impossible to know all of the unstated requirements. Do you think Starbucks knows all of their customer's unstated requriments and has them on a list? Do they know that my buddy Frank only likes half of the amount of whip cream they put on theur lattes? They know in general what most of the customers require.

I am not implying to not care about unstated requirements. No one can define all of the unstated requirements. We can know many of them or some of them. Unstated requirements change and are dynamic.

Not all Starbucks customers are satisfied all of the time. You cannot line up all of the requirements, add them up, divide them, put them into a formula, and say that you know the customer is satisfied. Satisfaction is a perception and therefore customer focus must try to drive at understanding that perception over time. Cusotmer satisfaction cannot be done at the supplying organiztion, with pencil and paper, a formula, and only calculated once. You have to actually interact with the customer to understand their perception.

One cannot measure satisfaction in an analytical, linear fashion with an equation or forumla. What I am saying is that a customer focus is a focus on the customer's perception of the supplying organization.

I think you've summed it up with your comment about customer needs and perceptions change with time. They do and successful organisations will recognise these changes in needs and perceptions and adapt. McDonald's is another large example of this happening, but I actually think it is easier in a business to consumer relationship, because most of the time you have such an interactive relationship and canvassing for their opinion is generally easier. Like Sidney stated, B2B is a different kettle of fish and IMO much harder to get right.

Perhaps you cannot always know every need and perception of your customers, but the successful organisations are those that recognise and act on more than thier competitors!

 

[zerodefect]

Re: How to Carry Out “Customer Focus” on All Parts of Management System?

......therefore customer focus must try to drive at understanding that perception over time. .......You have to actually interact with the customer to understand their perception.

......What I am saying is that a customer focus is a focus on the customer's perception of the supplying organization.

Very good!
measurement of customer's satisfactory must based on customer's perception. the same products or service, but the different customers, the perception is different. The perception root in folks' related awareness and knowledge,etc..

So we must consider the customer's perception for either design product or review satisfaction. and we must focus on the customer's perception for the customer's satisfaction. At the same time, the organization must focus on the customer's needs, the customer's needs is always original inputs. But the organization shall not meet all the customer's needs!

 

[vanputten]

Re: How to Carry Out “Customer Focus” on All Parts of Management System?

Sidney posted "Dirk, if you really think it is impossible for organizations to satisfy customers with unstated expectations, how do you explain the success of Starbucks, EBay, Southwest Airlines, etc...? Are they just plain lucky?

By the way Sidney, what data do you have that shows Starbucks, Ebay, and South West Airlines are not just lucky? Becasue they are "successful?" I don't think success (however that is defined) rules out luck.

Thank you,

Dirk

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Re: How to Carry Out “Customer Focus” on All Parts of Management System?

By the way Sidney, what data do you have that shows Starbucks, Ebay, and South West Airlines are not just lucky? Becasue they are "successful?" I don't think success (however that is defined) rules out luck.

Dirk, I have no intention to carry on a meaningless exchange.

Have a great weekend.

 

[vanputten]

Re: How to Carry Out “Customer Focus” on All Parts of Management System?

Wow!

Meaningless? It is meaningful for you to try to make a point directed at me specifically, but it is meaningless for me to ask the opposite question directly to you? This doesn't seem very mutual or equitable.

You imply that since Starbucks et al are successful then it is not luck. I ask for some type of supportiing info and my question is meangless? And it is meaningless in a thread about customer focus?


In the United States:

The average tenure of a CEO is 2 years. The average employee tenure is 5 years. 5% of all new businesses survive past 5 years. The average life of an organization that surives past 5 years is about 20 years. Most organizations (statisitically) don't last more than 5 years and the ones that do generally don't last more than 20 years.

These staticitics were provided by Bill Cooper and Russel Ackoff. I cannot assume anything about any one organization based on this provided data buit if the data is accurate, it sure seems as though organzitions are lucky for a few years and then end.

How can there be continuity and continual customer focus with this kind of business environment?

 

[Jim Wynne]

Re: How to Carry Out “Customer Focus” on All Parts of Management System?

In the United States:

The average tenure of a CEO is 2 years. The average employee tenure is 5 years. 5% of all new businesses survive past 5 years. The average life of an organization that surives past 5 years is about 20 years. Most organizations (statisitically) don't last more than 5 years and the ones that do generally don't last more than 20 years.

These staticitics were provided by Bill Cooper and Russel Ackoff. I cannot assume anything about any one organization based on this provided data buit if the data is accurate, it sure seems as though organzitions are lucky for a few years and then end.

In this context, the word "lucky" is meaningless, imo. Can you provide a rigorous definition for it, and then tell how you distinguish lack of luck from all of the things that might contribute to businesses ceasing to exist? If an entrepreneur opens his business with enough cash reserves to operate for five years without profit, then gets to the end of the five years, has no more cash and no profits, was his business open for five years due to luck?

Not only that, there are lots of reasons that businesses cease to exist that do not involve failure of any kind. Sometimes owners die and successors aren't interested in the business and liquidate it. Sometimes people retire. Sometimes people decide they don't like being in business for themselves once they've tried it.

 

[RickT]

Re: How to Carry Out “Customer Focus” on All Parts of Management System?

I have been away for a couple of weeks and just caught up with this excellent discussion. From my point of view customer perception is the most powerful phrase in the 2000 standard. It urges us to go beyond the "obvious".
I have just read an excellent book which deals virtually entirely with customer perception, yet never uses that specific word. Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One Minute Manager, has co-authored "Raving Fans - A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service", when talking about customer feedback says, "Silence is a message and NOT usually a good one".
The book also makes the point that an organization must make decisions about which customers it wants to attract and hold, saying an organization can't be everything to everyone.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Re: How to Carry Out “Customer Focus” on All Parts of Management System?

Wow!

Meaningless? It is meaningful for you to try to make a point directed at me specifically, but it is meaningless for me to ask the opposite question directly to you? This doesn't seem very mutual or equitable.

You imply that since Starbucks et al are successful then it is not luck. I ask for some type of supportiing info and my question is meangless? And it is meaningless in a thread about customer focus?

Totally meaningless. If you TRULY believe that well established and successful business can do so by luck only, what is the point of having customer focus, business models, business theories, compliance to business standards, etc...? What is the point of aiming at customer satisfaction improvement, if luck is all we need. It seems to me that the vast majority of business failures happen EXACTLY because inexperienced entrepeneurs believe and act as luck is all they need for the business to prosper.

When you ask

By the way Sidney, what data do you have that shows Starbucks, Ebay, and South West Airlines are not just lucky?

what kind of data (if it were possible to collect and present it) would satisfy you? What data could really prove if an organization is simply lucky or not?