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November 1998 Volume 3.02
A Mission For Your Customers Continues
3.0 Design and Develop Surveys -------->
Have you ever reviewed survey results thinking, “Hmm…that result
is just not possible – the respondents must have misinterpreted
the question.” A variety of issues can explain why respondents
answer what they answer. Critical thinking is required in
the CVA approach when designing and developing surveys. Screening
questions ensure that the right person is answering the survey.
While it is tempting to ask questions about an endless list of items,
you will lose the respondent’s attention when surveying. An
effective survey is like the front page of a respected newspaper
– it covers the broad issues and a few details. Just
as a reader needs the right amount of information to understand
the critical elements of the present events, you need to ask the
right questions. The order of the questions should be asked
in a way that is natural to the respondent. Providing a structured
questionnaire helps the respondent complete ratings on the sections
of critical items. The questions themselves must be checked
to ensure that they do not bias the respondents’ answers.
Investing time in testing the questionnaire for clarity, ease of
use and actual survey time will minimise the fieldwork time.
Additionally, maintaining mandatory questions helps to compare trends
of answers for your product and/or service.
The preparation and planning in this step ensures that the ideal
respondents have been contacted to get feedback on the business
and the marketplace. Additionally, achieving the following
8 steps will flow better due to asking the right questions. Watch
the following newsletters for more information about the next 8
steps…
Susan Moore
Previous Step
2.0...
Next Step 4.0...
Fudge and Fun
We are strolling through the food court in Baltimore’s Inner Harbour
area. Much noise and a huge crowd lie ahead. As we get
closer we see chocolate fudge being made by a master fudge maker.
He is not a master because of the quality of his fudge. He
is a master because he engages his potential customers in the manufacture
of the fudge. From the time he starts mixing the ingredients
to the time the last piece is cut this man is a superb performer.
Whether its asking the customers for advice on how to mix the ingredients,
or getting them to sing along with the special chant needed when
the hot fudge is poured onto the marble slab for mixing, the customers
are engaged in every step of the fudge making.
Contrast this with the Fudge and Fun store in Dallas. Exactly
the same store layout with the same bowls, mixing tables, and fudge
recipe. The fudge maker systematically goes about his job producing
a high quality product. A few people watch the mechanical
steps, before moving on.
Meanwhile back in Baltimore the customers get out their dollars
and buy fudge.
Well it may seem easy for a business with one-on-one customer
contact to engage the customer, but how do you do it when the customer
is on their own with the product. Consider a business executive
booking into a suite in a hotel belonging to one of the world’s
best known hotel chains. On her bed she finds a little chocolate
inside a packet with a slogan printed saying the hotel is committed
to excellence. How nice!
For her next business travel she books into another hotel chain.
This time there is no little chocolate in the suite. But she
does find information cards on the hotel’s Good Earth Housekeeping
practices with a request to take part, “You’re Invited To Participate!”
The hotel has engaged her in its conservation work.
The first technique of providing a chocolate adds cost to the hotel’s
operations. The guests may or may not feel that it adds value
and results in excellence. It is quite a passive addition
to the hotel product. Even if the guests do like chocolate
it is unlikely that this little gift would cause them to consider
the hotel to be excellent.
Contrast this with the second approach where guest’s actions improve
the environment and reduce the laundry bill for the hotel. Engaging
the customer in this way is likely to markedly change the way the
guest sees the hotel, especially if they are a little bit biased
towards conserving resources.
An entertainer goes through their act in front of an audience,
while great performers go far beyond this by engaging their audience
in the performance. In the same way great companies engage
their customers so the customers regard them as excellent providers
of value.
Telemanagment World
Every 6 months a thousand telecommunication managers from around
the world gather for the TeleManagement World? conference staged
by the TeleManagement Forum. The Forum has members from supplier,
provider, and customer groups from around the world. Interest
is building in the best way to manage in an integrated manner the
many individual components that must come together to provide the
digital services that today’s businesses demand. The quest
for the best way to solve this problem is so great that every 6
months the number of people attending the seminar grows by a further
15%. The most recent conference was held in Dallas, Texas
and looked at the areas of the Operations Map, the Technology Map,
the Central Information facility and the Catalyst projects.
The growing interest in adoption of Customer Value techniques saw
a special executive workshop held at the conference on this subject.
Intended exclusively for the 50 senior-level attendees at TeleManagement
World? this workshop was by invitation only.
The workshop focussed on ways to prioritise investment opportunities
given a long list of possibilities and limited resources.
When designing the workshop we realised that this would be a challenging
and diverse group of people to work with. At the workshop
the attendees were channelled into supplier and provider groups
then focussed on a case study involving a full service network provider
company. At times it seemed that some of the participants
became so engrossed in the case study they believed it was real.
The divergence of opinion that emerged from the two types of groups
was a strong reminder of the gap that sometimes exists between suppliers
and their customers and how the Customer Value tools can be used
to understand it better.
Regards,
Rodger Gallagher
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