Create a customer-centric culture - Leading in quality, innovation, and speed

Author: Robin L. Laughton (USA)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: Example 1: Recall your experience of taking a car for repair. It takes 20 minutes to drive from home to the repair shop. At 7:30 AM, you arrive at the repair shop, and the service representative tells you that the repair will take one hour, with a cost between $150–$200, and you can pick up the car after 4:00 PM. After work, you take a ride with a colleague, driving 15 miles to the repair shop by 5:30. After paying $198, you drive home. If the repair shop (producer) measures this repair, the common variables are as follows:
1. The value of the repair (price) (USD)
2. The cost of parts
3. Labor time (varying based on start and end times)
4. Labor cost (per hour)
5. Profit (for repairs and parts)
6. Monthly repair volume
7. The number of reworks due to improper repairs
Which of these measurement standards reflects simplicity and ease of use? Simplicity and ease of use are far more important than these attributes. The customer has to make two round trips: first taking the car to the repair shop, and then driving back from the shop. The customer also has to drive to the repair shop early in the morning and leave the car there for 10 hours, even though the actual repair only takes one hour. The producer is unlikely to include the cost of these two round trips in the measurement. If the repair shop offers car rental services, they might calculate the rental cost and the cost of using the car and try to maximize these metrics. In this example, either there is no measurement of usability, or the measurement (also known as motivation) leads us to do things that the customer considers wrong.
Which of these measurement standards reflects the customer's perception of timeliness? Waiting time and driving time are what the customer cares about, but the producer does not measure them. The producer might be satisfied if the repair time is shorter than the standard time, but this is useless for the customer's perception of timeliness.
From the customer's perspective, certainty might relate to predictability—the ability to know when the car will be repaired. If we know in advance that the car can be repaired between 7:30 AM and 8:30 AM, we will drive to the repair shop to wait for the repair. In the example, the producer only tells us to "repair it as quickly as possible." The producer should ask us when we need the car and when we need it repaired. These time variables are measurable.
These points are reasonable and not difficult to express. However, the operations of most major service products do not follow these principles. We have discussed a simple example. Let's examine the measurement of customer needs by stimulating demand (see Figure 4-1).
Continuing with the car repair example, suppose we own a repair shop, and the repair service is the product. During interactions with customers, we know they want "high-quality service." Like customers elsewhere, they convey their expectations in non-technical language. What we need to do is explain the VOC in more precise terms so that we can meet the customer's needs and measure the outcomes. As mentioned earlier, these customer expectations are subjective. What does "high-quality service" mean? What factors contribute to it? This statement is too vague to provide a clear behavioral process.
Earlier, when discussing the customer's perspective on repairs, we used traditional customer response cards. We asked some questions, such as: "How satisfied are you with the service?" We provided a range of options, from "Very Satisfied" to "Very Dissatisfied." The problem is that we never use this feedback to guide specific actions. When customers are extremely satisfied, we are still unsure which behaviors are correct to continue. From the perspective of guiding improvement, these surveys are just a waste of time and money. We swear this time will be different.