Everybody--especially people stopping at Web sites like this one--knows that you're supposed to "think process." Hence, all the people, time and money devoted to initiatives under such labels as "Quality," "Process Improvement" and that Darth Vader of modern management practices, "Reengineering." Everybody also knows that you're supposed to "stay close to the customer." Hence the all-out efforts to conduct customer satisfaction surveys, listen more acutely to the customer voice and create an ever-sharper customer focus. It's against this backdrop that I ask you to consider some interesting findings from a survey I was involved in a few years back. We talked to managers from a broad range of companies and industries who had been involved in serious, substantive efforts to improve the performance of key business processes. We asked them, in essence, "How satisfied are you with what you've been able to accomplish?" Given the level of resources they had thrown at those process improvement efforts, their answers were more than a bit disconcerting, with more than half describing themselves as either "dissatisfied" or "very dissatisfied" with the results they had attained. Parsing things a bit finer, we discovered that the bulk of their dissatisfaction came not so much from the amount of improvement they ultimately achieved, but instead from the pace at which progress was made and the degree of confidence they had in their improvements' sustainability. In effect, survey respondents said, "I'm OK with the technical merit of what we did; the techniques work. But it took way too long, and I'm not convinced it's gonna stick." Or boiled down even further: "Did we make the right change? Yes." "Was it fast enough? No." "Deep enough? No." Trying to figure out why is the sort of thing that keeps managers up at night. (In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that it also keeps consulting firms in business.) Part of the answer can be found peeking out of another corner of the survey. Along with being asked about their satisfaction levels with their process improvement efforts, respondents were also asked a series of questions about their companies' customer connection practices, i.e., How do they connect with customers? Who connects? How often? A couple of interesting correlations emerged: *The more direct contact a company's management team had with customers, the faster improvement efforts seemed to go. *The more direct customer contact that people at all levels of the organization had, the deeper and more sustainable the improvements seemed to be. So there appears to be some leverage in those customer connections. And because the importance of being connected to customers is part of the conventional wisdom, that would seem to be a good thing, wouldn’t it? Maybe. But it raises some nagging questions: If our customer connections are such a source of leverage, and if we're already focusing so much attention on them, why are dissatisfaction levels with our improvement efforts still so high? Could it be that we're not getting everything out of those customer connections that we could be getting? Could it be that the conventional wisdom about customer connection turns out to be a tad too conventionaland maybe even not so wiseafter all? Those are the questions I've been trying to help clients sort out over the past several years. We’ve been challenging some of the assumptions they’ve been making about their customer connections and considering some uncomfortable possibilities: *Maybe we're asking customers the wrong questions. *Maybe we should get different people out there asking them. *Maybe we're looking for the answers in the wrong places. *Maybe it's time to rethink this whole idea of the "internal customer." *Maybe it's even time to rethink why we’re connecting with customers in the first place. *Maybe, by doing so, we can begin to find ways to better align change efforts (thereby accelerating the process) and keep them more energized over the long haul (thereby ensuring the sustainability of change). That's the ground that I'll be covering in this space during the coming months. But before I bias the process any further with my ramblings, I'd like to hear from you. Is there anything you've read here that has stirred up your thinking? Does entertaining a bit of doubt about the conventional wisdom surrounding customer connections appeal to you? Does it square with your experience? Do you have any data or anecdotes to supportor refutewhat's being suggested here? E-mail me at jguaspari@qualitydigest.com. I promise a response. And I look forward to continuing the conversation with you in the months ahead. Visit Rath & Strong’s Web site at www.rathstrong.com. About the author John Guaspari is a senior associate of the Lexington, Massachusetts-based management consulting firm, Rath & Strong. The books he has written include I Know It When I See It and The Customer Connection. Copyright 1998 by John Guaspari. |
