What practical measures can be taken to improve customer satisfaction?

D

darkafar

#1
If your customers are unsatisfied what practicable measures can be taken to improve customer satisfaction evidently in a short term?
 
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harry

Super Moderator
#2
"You can't get anywhere unless you know where you are at the present moment."

So, the first step is to know where you are now - Customer satisfaction survey - many methods available but we are not here to argue which is best. Fastest is to call them & that is provided you know them reasonably well.

Next is to assess the survey results. Japanese and Chinese usually don't give you a direct answer. You kind of do a root cause analysis to discover their real unhappiness and/or their expectations.

Now you know the gap! Take immediate action (some call it stop-gap measures) to fill it. Some long term measures may be necessary. Example - quality problems. Immediate action may be increase inspection level but long term measures are to find out root cause and come out with a solution for it.

Regards.
 
D

darkafar

#3
These are my plans, seek advice.

Customer Satisfaction Improvement Plan:
Scheme 1 (This method is for long-term practice)
1. Improve customer communication
Step 1: Assign specialist person to do the communication with customer to let them know we are professional.
Step 2: Teach the specialist person business courtesy to make the customers feel respected.
Step 3: Register every customer opinion to make them feel they are taken serious.
Step 4: Interview customers to know what they think are really important and record the result.
Step 5: Take measures on the customer feedbacks and let the customer know it.
2. Capture customer satisfaction perception
Step 1: Send questionnaires to customers to give them an opportunity to show how they really think of us but don’t push them.
Step 2: Combine key quality objective performances with their perception to understand the probability that they would release orders to us.
Step 3: Take corrective measures if the result doesn’t meet target.
3. Improve product quality.
Step 1: Research market to know the quality benchmark.
Step 2: Through proper communication to know what the customer really wants.
Step 3: Teach relevant engineers specific skills to produce robust process design.
Step 4: Provide proper resources to realize the designed process.
4. Improve delivery performance
Step 1: Plan delivery schedule according to customer requirements.
Step 2: QA shall conduct final product audit to make sure that the product is ready.
5. Improve service performance
Solve customer complaints in a timely matter.

Scheme 2 (This method is for short-term practice)
1. Customer satisfaction survey
Contact the customer at suitable levels.
Talk with the customer if somebody has a good personal relationship with the customer.
Use a well-developed questionnaire if the above mentioned person is not available.
2. Gap analysis
Do a root cause analysis to know why they are unhappy, what are their expectations.
Do a gap analysis to see what can be done
3. Take corrective actions
Base on the gaps identified take necessary actions to fill in the gaps or exceed customer expectations.
Formalize the actions taken to keep customer satisfaction level.
 
D

Duke Okes

#4
If your customers are unsatisfied what practicable measures can be taken to improve customer satisfaction evidently in a short term?
- Use containment, increased special controls, etc. to at least find the problems before they get to the customer.

- Make it very clear to them that you are committed to responding to their concerns. Get them involved in the process of improvement (e.g., have someone from their organization on internal teams), through identification of opportunities, potential solutions, and validation of progress.
 

RoxaneB

Super Moderator
Super Moderator
#5
Just an idea, but don't call them "schemes". Scheme = plotting = evil = worried customers. ;)

A lot of the measures will vary depending on your customer. Looking at our customer complaints for the past two years, I've realized that on the quality complaints, often the customer just wanted to "vent" about the issue and they worked through it on their own. Of course, we worked on our processes to reduce the liklihood of the problem happening again. :cool:

But on things like invoices and sales-based complaints, they wanted money back. Once that was done, they were happy.
 
D

darkafar

#6
Thanks. This problem suddenly disappeared as I found the boss is actually looking for something else.
 
D

darkafar

#9
So you don't have any unsatisfied customers or your boss isn't concerned if the customers are satisfied? :notme:
My boss wanted a plan to improve customer satisfaction next year, so I gave him these, but he told me that’s not what he really wanted. Then he showed me two goals that he believed would achieve customer satisfaction. He told me to figure out a way to achieve these goals.
One is to be accredited with ISO14000 by the mid of next year.
The other is to become the best supplier of 3 out of 5 our biggest customers by the end of next year.
 
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