Post on 15-Jan-2016
Voice of the Customer
Listen to your customer and change your business
Your Presenter – Brian Swanson
• Director of Enterprise Excellence at NACS, Inc. At NACS we design and manufacture custom
automated equipment for a range of industries. • Prior to NACS I worked in the Wood industry for
20 years. Part of that time was operating my own custom furniture manufacturing business and part was at Lexington Manufacturing, a contract wood component manufacturer.
The struggle with Empowerment
Our Objective
• To examine tools and concepts that will help organizations derive excellence and power from customer input while strengthening the sense of partnership that customers feel for your company.
• Note: The tools and steps involved are simple but not easy.
Enterprise Excellence Overview
Lean Structure
Why was your company started?
• Work with a group to create a list of the reasons why you believe people start companies.
• From your list choose the one that you feel best describes why businesses are started.
Why companies are started:
Why Companies are started:• “Most entrepreneurs are driven by their passion
to start their businesses out of wanting to help others create or obtain something.”– Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
• “I began to learn what poverty meant. It was burnt into my heart then that my father had to
beg for work. And then and there came the resolve that I would cure that when I got to be a
man.”– Andrew Carnegie
• “I worked for other people for 15 years and to be honest I did not like the experience. I started my own business (working twice as hard for myself) and really enjoyed being my own boss and the feeling of being in control of my life and future.
One of the best things I ever did.”– Jsantiago
• “To maximize time with my daughter I get up at 4:30AM to work on developing the business.
Nothing is more motivating than my baby girl.”– jenifer888
Why Companies are started:
Companies are not started to serve customers
The Enterprise Excellence Cycle
Strategy Deployment
Business Review
Customer Interviews
Affinity Sort
Execution
• Goals of Employee Interviews:– Discover nuggets of insight within your
organization– Engage your organization in the VOC process– Uncover opportunities for improvement in your
organization– Prepare your organization to participate in the
VOC process
Business Review
• Ask difficult but open ended questions.• Don’t expect everyone to answer every
question.• Begin with a written survey and follow up with
interviews to capture actionable information.• Take advantage of this opportunity to
reinforce company values and objectives.
Business Review
• Beware of biases and reluctance to share the truth.– If you think there is a good chance people will
hold back information or not provide accurate answers, it may make sense to have an unbiased outsider conduct the surveys and interviews.
• See attached Business Review questionnaire example
Business Review
• The information gathered from the organization through the Business Review Process is the foundation for discussions with customers.
Business Review Customer Interviews
• Prepare questions for customers that will:– Clarify areas of disagreement among your internal
people– Reinforce important points where people seem
unsure– Provide clarity in areas where employees see
opportunities for improvement– Return actionable information that you can use in
your organization
Customer Interviews
“If I asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse”
– Henry Ford
• Customers don’t often know what they want until they see it.
• The types of questions we ask influence the quality of customer responses.
• See attached Discussion Guide
Customer Interviews
The Kano Quality Model
Didn’t do it at all Did it Very Well
Dissatisfied
Satisfied
IndifferentExcitement Needs
Basic Needs
Performance Needs
Time element
• Moderator– Conducts the Interview– Establishes a Safe Environment and Rapport– Executes Discussion Guide Questions
• Note Taker– Takes Verbatim Notes
• Observer– Listens and Watches– Writes down observations
• Body Language• Tone• Hesitation• Engagement
Customer Interviews
• Interviews are a team effort• The goal is to listen and not influence the
infromation• Interviewing requires preparation and practice• Biases must be set aside – capture customer’s
words• 35% of meaning is transferred verbally – 65%
is nonverbal
Customer Interviews
• Drill down to get to core needs by asking “Why?” or “Please tell me more about that”
– “The equipment I buy needs to have a 30 horsepower motor.”
– “Your lead times are short”
Customer Interviews
• Debrief as soon after the interview as possible.– Record impressions– Review and clarify notes– Summarize key points that were made by the
customer
Customer Interviews
• Compile all of the information from the interviews– Record every comment on an individual post-it
note• There will be a ton of them – that’s the intention
– Be sure to identify the source of the comment– As much as possible, record the exact customer
wording.
Customer Interviews
• Practice Interviewing in Groups– Choose the following roles:
• Moderator• Note Taker• Observer
Customer Interviews
• Goals of the sorting process:– Re-connect the people within your organization to
the VOC process– Get people physically involved– Find the hidden nuggets of wisdom that come
from the combination of your customers and your employees insights
– Bring your company one step closer to alignment
Affinity Sort
• Put all of the post-it notes on a wall
• At this point, don’t organize them, they should remain random
Affinity Sort
• Have every employee participate in sorting the post-it notes into affinity groups– Don’t predetermine titles to
the groupings – let them decide how they fit together and what the titles will be
– Some comments will be moved multiple times. Keep track of where the comments have been
– Encourage people to come through and re-sort multiple times
Affinity Sort
• The affinity groupings form themes that become the foundation for your corporate strategy.
Affinity Sort Strategy Deployment
• Listen to what the groupings are telling you– Comments that have been in multiple groupings
are significant– Groupings that you disagree with are meaningful– Take some time and discuss what the groupings
are telling you.– DON’T SHORT CUT THIS STEP
Strategy Deployment
• Report back to your employees and customers– Review the goals of the process– Highlight the steps that have been taken so far– Summarize your conclusions– Tell them what you heard when they answered
your questions– Feed back the nuggets of wisdom that you
discovered
Strategy Deployment
Example Conclusions:• We have four distinct customer groups that each has
very different requirements.– Medical R&D - looking for creativity and flexibility in the process that allows
them to actively participate in the design and build process.– Medical Production - require discipline and structure to ensure reliability and
efficient transition into the validation process.– Non-medical Production - require less rigor in documentation than medical
customers while still maintaining discipline and reliability.– Fabrication of parts - Looking for simple and efficient interactions that
ensure quality, cost, and delivery are optimized.
Strategy Deployment
• Our customers value the following in a machinery vendor:
Confidence• “Design, price, and concept are what determine who will get the project. Who will meet
the requirements of the project? Who will be most likely to make the delivery?”
• “I look for enough detail in the proposal that I can be confident that it is clear to both parties.”
• “When people are overly optimistic or aggressive just to get the business, that is very frustrating to me. I want the real story.”
• “Other vendor’s proposals were higher risk for us. We went with NACS because we had the most confidence in their concept.”
• “Integrity is the most important characteristic of a vendor. Do what you say you will do.”
Strategy Deployment
• Determine at MOST four strategic objectives for the next year.– The key is creating maximizing the experience for
your employees and your customers– Expect excellence– Understand that leaders create culture
Strategy Deployment
• The SDP Matrix:
Strategy Deployment
• The Scorecard
Strategy Deployment
• Communicate, Communicate, Communicate ...– Post SDP Matrices throughout your
organization– Talk about the process every day– Tell employees and customers stories
about what is happening at every opportunity
Execution
• Conduct Report-Outs– Teams present monthly to the company
– Progress made to date– Results– Next steps
– The report-outs have three objectives:– Celebrate results– Cross-pollinate ideas– Maintain accountability to the strategy
Execution
The Enterprise Excellence Cycle
Strategy Deployment
Business Review
Customer Interviews
Affinity Sort
Execution