All Posts Tagged With: "complaint management"
A Baldrige View of Customer Experience
The Baldrige Criteria ask: How do you create an organizational culture that ensures a consistently positive customer experience and contributes to customer engagement?
Adam Richardson defines “customer experience” as the sum-totality of how customers engage with your organization and brand through the entire arc of being a customer. In “Understanding Customer Experience” (HBR, October 28, 2010), he suggests three layers of customer experience to consider:
- Customer Journey. The journey a customer takes with your organization from first contact to providing a product or service to supporting that product or service and extending the relationship with the customer.
- Touchpoints. All of the points where the customer interacts with your organization.
- Ecosystems. By Richardson’s definition, the integrated ecosystems of products, software, and services that offer more than isolated touchpoints.
Have you ever used Zipcar? It’s the largest car-sharing company in the United States (it’s also in Vancouver, Toronto, and London). Here in the Twin Cities, the Zipcar locations are all in or near the University of Minnesota; college students are big Zipcar customers. Richardson touts Zipcar as a great example of a company that used its understanding of the entire arc of the customer car-renting experience to turn car-sharing into a mainstream business—and help the environment in the…
1Nov2010 | Steve George | 0 comments | Continued10 Critical Questions: Your Customers
In the Baldrige Criteria, “customer” is broadly defined as “actual and potential users of your organization’s products, programs, or services.” No matter what your organization does, it has customers: consumers, purchasers, patients, physicians, students, parents, constituents, etc.
In previous articles we listed 10 critical questions you can ask about leadership, strategic planning, and key strengths and opportunities for improvement. As we noted, the best way to evaluate your management system is through a Baldrige assessment using the Baldrige Criteria. You can find out how to do that here.
The Criteria consist of powerful questions, rarely asked, about how an organization functions. If you cannot do a full assessment but want insight into how to improve your customer focus, here are 10 critical questions to ask and answer:
- What are your key customer groups or market segments and what does each group/segment require of your organization?
- How do you determine which groups/segments to serve?
- How do you determine the requirements of each group/segment?
- How do you identify and innovate products, programs, and/or services to meet these requirements and exceed expectations?
- How do you support your products, programs, and/or services and enable your customers to seek information and utilize them?
- How do you create an organizational culture that ensures a…
