Assignment- Customer / Employee satisfaction

1. Tool: Customer - Supplier Chain

a. Why do you think we are covering customers and employees in the same session?

2. Book Report

3. Can you think how the accounting department links to customer satisfaction?

What about production?
Is marketing part of this too?

4. Some questions about whether customer focus is more words than deeds:

a. If companies focus on selling efficiency, is that putting the customer first? Is there someone who gets up every morning thinking about customers?

b. If so many key measures are ROI, can the customer or employee really be a priority? Do senior managers have customer or employee satisfaction goals?

c. Many technology approaches are driven bycost reduction goals - does this help the customer or employee? Are data used to anticipate what customers want next?

d. Most structures r organized around products - what about customers?

5. Having a customer focus is called outside in thinking/acting - the customer being on the outside of the company. But its also important to view things inside out:

a. Prioritizing the customer base
b. The company needs to have the right people to deal with the customers - particularly the most important ones
c. The company must have products / services that will satisfy customers today and tomorrow
d. The company must make money on its customers....and if not, it needs to figure out whether it can

6. Case study

A marketing budget is about to be reduced as part of an overall cost reduction effort. With whom is the CMO competing when making arguments for keeping as much as the budget as possible?

What does the CFO argue? How can the CMO compete?

Or the head of production - what does he say?

7. Reframing Leadership - Bolman& Deal

a. The authors offers 4 frames as a way to better understand the essence of good leadership. They say leaders need to attend to:

• Organizational structure → does this impact the employee....the client?
• People and relationships → this is all about both groups
• Power and influence → empowerment of employees certainly impacts both two groups?
• Fostering passion and meaning → how happy would the client be if the employee working with her was passionate?

8. Should allclients betreated the same?

What are the characteristics of profitable clients and those who are not?

9. It's a lot less expensive to keep a client than to get a new one:

a. Loyal clients

• Buy more often
• Buy higher priced items
• Are less price sensitive

b. Client defection hurts

c. Client profitability increases over time

10. Just like all clients are not the same, all employees are not the same.

11. What do you think is the relative value of a great vs. good employee?

12. Leaders need to focus on keeping good people. What's the cost to retrain someone - assuming you can even find a person as good as the one who left?

13. Revolution in customer skill building:

a. Problem solving to achieve consistent quality improvement
b. Listening skills to understand intangible attributes of a product or service in the mind of the customer
c. Shift from adversarial to cooperative relations aimed at achieving lightening fast responsiveness
d. Work with suppliers and distributors as partners
e. Empower first line sales and service people to solve problems on the spot
f. Treat every customer as someone with special needs and with whom you wish to build a special relationship

Why do you think Peters says every customer?

14. Case study:

A new customer (C) is brought into a services organization (S) with potential to be a major client. C signed an agreement that covered liability limitations. During the first 3 years revenue from C grew significantly. S made an error in processing the C's work at the beginning of year 4; C asked for a very significant rebate - 3 times the size of limitation to which they agreed - an amount that materially impacted the quarter and year's profits.

(a) What should S do?
(b) What are the factors to consider in making that decision?
(c) Who should make the decision?

15. Launching a Quality revolution: How do theseapply to employees & clients?

EmployeesClients

a. Customer focus ------------
b. Systematic support ---------
c. Continual improvement---
d. Measurement----------------
e. Total involvement ----------

16. What questions does aleader need to ask aboutclients to demonstrate theirimportance to the company? _______________________

17. What about employees - what questions does a leader need to ask?____

18. On-boarding

a. What doeson-boarding mean?
b. What does it mean in thecontext of clients and employees?
c. What are the keys to a successful new on-boarding?

19. Employee and customer tenure is a good thing (assuming the company wants to keep the people/customers). What ideas do you have to create customer and employee loyalty? ____________________________

20. Customers and employees leaving

a. Should you try to save a client or employee that says s/he is leaving?

b. If the decision is for the customer or employee is to leave, is it important to exceed expectations during departure? Why?

c. "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning" Bill Gates

d. Doing what a customer or employee really needs may be different than what s/he says s/he needs or wants. Getting to the bottom of this dilemma is key.Can you think of any examples?

21. "Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person - not just an employee - are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled". Anne Mulcahy

....Listen to them....don't play favorites...Give them a chance to grow

22. Customer happiness is related to

What % of customer facing actions do you think fall into each of these boxes?

What about employee facing actions?

Tool: Customer and employee focus is all about doing the right things right

23. Customer surveys:
a. Have youever taken one?
b. What doyou think about it?
c. Why do you thinkcompanies do them?
d. Who analyzes the data?

24. In an article The Leader as Toxin Handler by Frost and Robinson, the authors suggest ways to deal with toxin handlers:
a. Acknowledge workplace emotions
b. Develop systemic strategies for handlingworkplace pain
c. Offering support groups for toxin handlers
d. Reassigning toxin handlers to "safe zones"
e. Stress management/reduction programs

25. According to thereading, why can silo inertia (of a good silo) be a good thing?

26. Are there issues with a sales manager who wants to be involved directly with prospects and customers?
How sales oriented should a sales manager be?
Should the sales manager be able to contact the customer any time s/he wants??

27. Summary of client and employee expectations:

28. A Company named ABC has three major divisions. This case is about one of those divisions - ABC Info. ABC Info offers a wide range of services, all of which have been linked together under the brand name ABC Info. The go-to-market strategy of ABC Info is broad and deep offering services that are both specialized and coordinated. The services companies have a single brand and tagline (ABC Info Is Everywhere).
XYZ Software is an operation owned by ABC Info, and it is a winner:

• It's a 10-year-old start up
• Growing revenue and profits 20% (vs. services business at 4%) per year
• Similar software businesses hold a 30 EPS multiple; similar services businesses hold a 13 EPS multiple (EPS = earnings per share)
• ABC Info's revenue is 10 times that of XYZ revenue

XYZ has kept that name and goes to market with it - all of its sister companies use ABC Info. ABC Info is consolidating its marketing for all of its companies, at significant savings. But XYZ wants to maintain its own department.

The marketing spend in the XYZ is 5 times the level of the ABC Info business.ABC Info wants to benefit from the brand strength of the software business name. XYZ is known for its quality software, and its software relates to the business of ABC Info. But XYZ does not want to use the ABC name because it has built a strong software brand and claims change will be harmful. XYZ states: "The Info brand doesn't work for the software company." It is not feasible for the name ABC Info to become XYZ.

Should there be any link between the two brands?

Should XYZ have its own marketing department; if not, should it change its way of doing business?