Are you customer friendly?

Every day we're saying, 'How can we keep our customers happy?' 'How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don't, somebody else will. Dealing with customers plays a major role in any organizations success or failure. Customers always never interested in our specification documents; they are interested in the answer to one simple question:

“Did the product do what I expected it to do?”

Quality in a product or service is not what the suppliers put in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. And the dilemma is Customer satisfaction cannot be measured, it can only be monitored. Ignoring the customer satisfaction can lead to unawareness. Sometimes a light you see at the end of a tunnel is actually an oncoming train. This is how ignorance can lead to unawareness.

Any organization (or I would say a successful organization) should have a trust relationship with their customers. Trust should be closely monitored because trust is invisible but the symptoms of its absence are not. Your most unhappy customers should be your greatest source of learning.

Now this is interesting. Just now, a thought came into my mind. I am trying to list down some expectations that I want from the product / service provider when I am playing a role of a customer. When I am a customer, I want that my talks, views and ideas should be listened attentively, taken seriously with basic courtesies and dedicated attention. I want a competent and efficient service / product with all the anticipation of my needs and all the explanations in my terms.

I want from the other side of the desk that I should be informed with all the options that they have and not to be passed around. Other than that, I want a friendliness, honesty and professional service with a follow through and empathy.

Recently, I went to buy something, big house hold item, in one of the biggest shopping mall of my area and all the things that I mentioned above was not done up to my expectations. Although the shopping store was too good, big and from a reputed market leader in the household products, but still I was not convinced and satisfied with the way I was handled. I immediately drop the idea. Not of purchasing the item, but to purchase the item from the same shop. After that, I went to another shop with a comparatively small setup with the previous one. I bought the product from their. That means, most of the expectations that I have from the providers, have been fulfilled.

See, how I am reacting when I am playing a role of the customer. I immediately switched to another shop when my expectations were not fulfilled. This means that one should be customer friendly to sustain the market. The continuous entry of new competitors is exploding choice of the customer. Competitors are making enormous investments for long term market shares.

Here I am trying to pen down a checklist that one should follow to maximize the customer satisfaction level.

1. Getting to know who is to be served and also what exactly to offer.
2. Find out what exactly a customer is looking for.
3. Let the customer know about what you can offer today rather than telling them what you will offer them at a later stage.
4. Get people who can deliver and meet deadlines.
5. Create prototypes.
6. Find the easiest approach for customer transition.
7. Customize your product offering.
8. Allow the customer to get the best possible price and reduce his costs.
9. Provide the best possible security to customer information.
10. Use the right kind of networking hardware and creating the proper system architecture to link disparate functions.
11. Use the right kind of software or combination of software for proper enterprise level linkages and integrations.
12. Develop a centralized customer information database available at all touch points and assisting in personalized marketing to the customer.
13. Proper knowledge management and integrating the same with the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution.
14. Educate employees and customers alike.
15. Viewing the CRM solution in the context of normal business activity rather than a complex front end.

I always insist on a statement, which is my favorite,

“Customer satisfaction is quality”

Most of the companies are working on this single liner about quality. These companies are allowing the customer to dictate specifications and quality standards. All the marketing efforts are directed at meeting customer needs, not market share. Marketers are tracking customer needs continuously and responding to them instantly. Corporate strategies are aiming at delivering greater customer values than rivals. All planning, process, and people are reconfigured around the customer.

As I said before, there is a huge competitiveness in the market. All the big market players are identifying the new competencies and growing to server the customer better. Costs are cutting down to deliver greater value at lower prices. TQM (Total Quality Management) plays a major role to raise the product quality, which the companies are using. Product cycle time are reducing to reduce time-to-market and boost responsiveness. Companies are developing their brands to generate long-term, not short term margins.

-- Sanat Sharma