Creating a customer-focused culture
Perspectives
Managing customer Being customer focused nowadays has to be
accepted as a bare necessity to conduct
satisfaction: a best business and as some would say, it is the
practice perspective ``license to practice'' only. Organisations need
to indicate that they are truly focused on their
customers through deeds and actions.
Mohamed Zairi What this really means is that:
. Customer focus is not necessarily
statements on papers.
. These statements will have to be
examined in terms of their
appropriateness and the degree of
seriousness and discipline from senior
The author
managers to instigate a culture of
Mohamed Zairi is SABIC Chair in Best Practice customer focus.
Management, University of Bradford Management . Customer focus is a statement of intent.
Centre, Bradford, UK. It signals that the organisation is willing
to challenge status quo and embrace new
Keywords concepts and management disciplines.
Customer satisfaction, Measurement, Best practice, Adopted by world class organisations.
Complaints, Customer loyalty
. It also means creating new systems,
procedures and guidelines and adhering
Abstract
to the theme of servicing customers to
people's best ability, by doing the right
Customer satisfaction is perhaps one of the most talked
things right first time and on time.
about challenges of organisations, both in the public and . Customer focus is an evolutionary rather
private sectors. Indeed, this represents every
than revolutionary process. It is
organisation's sole purpose, is at the heart of every
painstaking and would require patient
mission statement, and is the ultimate goal of any
and great perseverance.
strategies put in place. As such, this paper in continuation . Finally, customer focus is really a state of
of the Best Practice series being so far covered, seeks to
mind rather than an absolute concept
present this prominent topic as a total concept which
which indicates optimised performance
encapsulates not only the measurement aspects of
and reaching the pinnacle of success.
customer satisfaction per se but rather as a long-term
pursuit of improvement, a culture change that can yield to One of the most basic questions that is rarely
competitive outcomes of the highest order. The paper asked is, who is the customer? Or, even more
includes some examples of best practice applications and embarrassingly, what is a customer?
concludes with a proposed audit tool that can help Customers are the purpose of what we do and
organisations assess their current approaches to customer rather than them depending on us, we very
satisfaction and thereby put forward targets and actions much depend on them. The customer is not
for improvement. the source of a problem, we shouldn't perhaps
make a wish that customers ``should go away''
Electronic access because our future and our job security will be
The research register for this journal is available at put in jeopardy. Mr Leon Bean, the founder
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quality.asp defines a customer as:
Someone who has needs and it is important for
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Many organisations go to great lengths to
ensure that they are reminding all of their
employees of the importance of customers.
The TQM Magazine
Volume 12 . Number 6 . 2000 . pp. 389±394 This can be achieved with statements such as
# MCB University Press . ISSN 0954-478X the importance of delighting the customer as a
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Managing customer satisfaction: a best practice perspective The TQM Magazine
Mohamed Zairi Volume 12 . Number 6 . 2000 . 389±394
necessity to maintain and ensure business across the board. In addition, one has to
survival, to honouring all of the pledges made, realise that we cannot use yesterday's means
and, as in the case of Ritz Carlton Hotel, be to serve tomorrow's needs. Service provision
determined not to lose one single customer. and customer satisfaction is a relative state
Every organisation has to ensure that the and not an absolute one.
process of identifying all of its customers is well Focusing on customers is the right thing to
disciplined and very much adhered to. We do and, in fact, is the most important thing to
often forget, for instance, the importance of do. What is important to a business is good
internal customers and how much they impact performance, profitability and growth. What
on the quality of service finally offered to the is important to employees at all levels, on the
customer. Yes, of course focusing on the other hand, is first and foremost job security,
external customer is the right thing to do and good pay, good job prospects, promotion and
ultimately it is external customers who pay for a bright future. These are all heavily
our goods and services. Internal customers are dependent on organisations' ability to fulfil all
also real, they represent the value chain and of their customers needs to their full
through the levels of synergy generated from satisfaction. There is a lot of research which
involving each of our employees, we will then directly links customer satisfaction to
be in a position to impact on the internal increases in profitability levels and sales. On
customer with the desired effect. As the saying the other hand, customer satisfaction is found
goes, ``you are only as good as your weakest to greatly impact business, corporate image
link in the chain''. Furthermore, and as far as and gaining new customers through direct
external customers are concerned, they need to recommendations.
be closely studied and their needs closely
identified and translated. Segmentation is the
right thing to do and will ensure that every Customer satisfaction versus
organisation is certainly delivering high dissatisfaction
volumes through the principle of mass
customisation. Managing customer dissatisfaction will
definitely lead to increases in customer
satisfaction. British Airways, for instance,
Customer-supplier relationships through dealing with complaints effectively
has realised that this impacted on retention
The creation of customer-supplier chains is levels very significantly.
an important task to do, otherwise internal Essentially, customers will only express
fragmentation will affect the external their repurchasing intentions through the
customer in a bad way. Essentially, every most recent experience they have had with us.
person employed is both a customer and More importantly, customers have started to
perhaps a supplier too. Through a process of take a keen interest in how we go about
translating the customer-supplier chain at all providing services to them and they compare
levels, better focus can be achieved and us with others. This is done in order to satisfy
ultimately all work carried out will be of value. their own minds that we are up to date and
This approach avoids duplication, use most current means, which are
misunderstanding, confusion, waste, sub- compatible with those of the best providers
optimisation and miscommunication. there are. Furthermore, they will be curious
Customer satisfaction is very often a about our systems, procedures and processes
misused and abused expression. Many in rendering services to them and of course in
organisations use it as a casual approach to service industry sectors such as the airline
state that their customers are happy and industry, everything is transparent and
satisfied with the levels of service rendered customers would observe the anomalies and
and the products and services purchased. The shortcomings almost immediately.
process itself of course requires discipline and There are numerous studies that have
has to be based on factual information, looked at the impact of customer satisfaction
measurement and regular communication. on repeat purchase, loyalty and retention.
More importantly, their needs vary with time They almost convey a similar message in that:
and we need to be aware of this fact. . Satisfied customers are more likely to
Furthermore, customers cannot be compared share their experiences with other people
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Mohamed Zairi Volume 12 . Number 6 . 2000 . 389±394
to the order of perhaps five or six people. reasons for competitor success from Japan
Equally well, dissatisfied customers are triggered the need for total quality
more likely to tell another ten people of management if Rank Xerox were to survive in
their unfortunate experience. the future. The studies revealed that Rank
. Furthermore, it is important to realise Xerox were at a disadvantage in terms of cost
that many customers would not complain and quality, together with being slower to
and this will differ from one industry introduce new products than their Japanese
sector to another. competitors which resulted in their loss of
. Lastly, if people believe that dealing with market share and in danger of going out of
customer satisfaction/complaint is costly, business.
they need to realise that it costs as much as The benchmarking studies and experience
25 per cent more to recruit new customers. from Fuji-Xerox in Japan resulted in their
Leadership through Quality programme,
which was introduced in 1984 and through
Customer satisfaction: a closed loop various evolutions is still running today.
escalation process Initially the business focus was on product
quality and cost but later it was redefined as
Rank Xerox was founded in 1956 with a establishing customer (internally and
specific purpose to manufacture and market externally) requirements and developing
reprographics and other office information plans to meet those requirements.
equipment throughout the world. Since that
date it has gained a reputation for being a Closed loop escalation process
leading high-technology company and has At Xerox, customer satisfaction data is used
many pioneering inventions to its name in to design new products, as well as improving
reprographics, workstations, laser printers, existing processes. This is effected through
electronic printing systems and colour copiers. the five steps of a root cause analysis
The organisation achieved rapid growth, technique:
with revenues of $53 million in 1959 to $4 (1) Generate a list of possible causes.
billion by 1975, but this rapid growth and (2) Identify which possible causes actually
market position was then challenged by the contribute to the problem.
Japanese companies, particularly those in the (3) Identify the root cause of the problem
small, high quality, low priced copier sector. using Pareto, checksheets, solution effect.
By the 1980s the position was reversed, with (4) Identify possible solutions.
80 per cent of all copiers in use throughout (5) Select and test solutions.
Europe being Japanese supplied.
The sharp decrease in revenue and profit Listening to the customer enables an in-
growth, together with a fall in return on depth understanding of what the customer
capital from 19 per cent to 8.4 per cent in the wants and using root cause analysis
three years to 1983 prompted the drive for techniques enables solutions to be found
quality as a means of survival. That strategy and implemented to avoid reoccurrence. The
decision has been effective, as today they are improvements arising require monitoring
one of the top 150 companies in Europe, in terms of both their efficiency and ability
serving over 500,000 customers, employing to meet customer requirements (see
26,000 people in Europe, working with 400 Figure 1).
component suppliers and earning revenues of The organisation adopts an escalation
£2.5 billion per year. process to enable the customer problem to be
Their extensive customer base represents resolved to the complete satisfaction of the
every level of commercial, industrial and customer. If the problem is not resolved at the
government organisation and their different operating unit customer contact level then it
needs are met through a product range of is escalated to a higher level until referral to
more than 300 systems including advanced headquarters where it is ultimately fixed (see
information storage and retrieval technology. Figure 2).
This process ensures that the problem is
Launch of total quality initiatives resolved at the nearest level to the customer as
A series of benchmarking studies undertaken possible and only referred up if the decision is
in the late 1970s to determine the underlying outside their jurisdiction.
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Mohamed Zairi Volume 12 . Number 6 . 2000 . 389±394
Figure 1 Customer satisfaction continuous improvement
Figure 2 Closed loop process . refocus activity where milestones are not
being met.
The most important parameter for Xerox in
customer satisfaction is the overall satisfaction
level and this is achieved by satisfying
customers in all areas of importance to them
(see Figure 3).
Customer satisfaction is measured at each
stage of the product lifecycle including when:
. the product is purchased;
. the sales experience at the time of
purchase;
. the administration at the time of purchase
and any subsequent interaction with the
organisation; and
. the ongoing service afforded to the
customer during their ownership of the
product.
Each of these four parameters has a number
of attributes which are evaluated by the
customer both in terms of how well the
company performed against them and how
Overall satisfaction measurement important each attribute was to the customer.
process Xerox recognise that customer needs change
over time and therefore variables are
Having considered the need to understand continually updated to reflect these changes.
customer requirements, managers require Research has indicated that organisations
data and information in order to: focusing solely on producing trend data are
. track progress towards company goals; reluctant to change their variables but in so
and doing miss the opportunity to measure what is
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Managing customer satisfaction: a best practice perspective The TQM Magazine
Mohamed Zairi Volume 12 . Number 6 . 2000 . 389±394
Figure 3 Overall satisfaction measures board entertainment, for others perhaps it is
how comfortable the seats are. But in all of
these aspects the impact on the customers as
we desire it to be has to be consistent and
that's where the challenge of being customer
focused starts.
Achieving and maintaining an effective
customer-focused culture would, therefore
require to consider all of the following:
. First of all, being customer focused
means that we are attempting to get
closer to our customers, know them
better, be clearer about their needs, be
aware of what concerns they may have,
and have a feel for their future needs.
. It is also very important to get some direct
feed back on how well we are doing from
the customer's perspective. Sometimes
profitability and increases in business are
extremely poor measures and it could
well be that the reasons are incidental
rather than deliberate.
. Customer focus means that we are in a
currently important to the customer. Xerox
position to asses the adequacy of current
attributes are continuously updated to reflect
approaches for fulfilling our customer
current needs of the customer, for example, in
needs and in a position to know what new
1989 a question was added about noise levels
services, products and innovations are
as a result of customer input.
required in the future.
. Customer focus means that through
concentrating on our customers, we can
Achieving customer focus identify our strengths and weaknesses and
assess our performance from a
What does it take to achieve customer focus?
competitive perspective.
How do we know that we are focusing on the . Finally, the external feedback is the echo
right attributes? What determines customer
of our efforts and the ``acid test'' for
satisfaction? What should we give them and
determining whether we are doing the
which area should we prioritise? None of
right things and thereby gauge employee
these question are easy to answer and will
performance and the most appropriate
always be difficult to answer. Customers are
reward and recognition systems.
individuals and would judge their providers
on different criteria and would assess their In order to assist with the process of
performance in a wide variety of ways which establishing a culture dedicated to achieving,
are meaningful and important to them. sustaining customer satisfaction in the form of
In the airline industry for instance, all travel loyalty and retention, an audit tool has been
attributes are extremely important. devised specifically for that purpose. The tool
Customers, of course, would like their itself is inspired from Blazey (1997) and the
journey to be smooth, comfortable, and the analysis of several world-class organisations.
whole experience very enjoyable. Of course The tool itself will enable organisations to
aspects such as safety will be on everyone's question their strategies, practices and the
mind, but we can say that this is a basic effectiveness of the approaches they are
requirement that every airline company has to adopting vis-aÁ-vis serving their customers in
address and would not be the reason why the best ways possible. For instance, the
customers buy from one operator or another. following areas can be closely scrutinised:
Other attributes will impact differently on . the measurement aspects of customer
individual customers. For some, for instance, satisfaction;
time is important, for others food and on . the quality of information and data used;
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Mohamed Zairi Volume 12 . Number 6 . 2000 . 389±394
. the external orientation aspects of . This stage is essentially knowing
focusing on customer satisfaction; what is required of us, what
. the use and application of data collected; pressures are on us and what will
and help in deciding on how we should
. the decision-making process itself. go about creating focus on our
customers.
(3) Being customer focused means that we
Some final thoughts on customer focus do not shy away from asking questions on
service quality standard, satisfaction
(1) Being customer focused does mean levels, future intentions, complaints, etc.
having a clear service strategy which is By creating a dialogue with our customers
deployed with vision, purpose and some and developing a closed-loop system
goal and targets. This process may start which continuously monitors how we
with some basic questions on the reasons perform in the eyes of our customers, how
why a service is offered in the first place. we grow and develop as a customer-
How we plan to provide it ± and how we focused organisation and how we use an
go about providing it and who is innovative spirit to keep them interested
responsible for what bit etc. in us is an absolute must.
(2) To support the process of developing a (4) The dialogue that we will create with our
customer-focused culture there are some customers has to be based on a strong
system which constantly seeks views,
key drivers, based on best practices and
gathers feedback, assesses future needs,
used to measure business excellence at
handles issues, put action plans in place,
world-class level:
monitors satisfaction levels and drives
. The first stage is perhaps to learn
forward to guarantee loyalty factors and
to know who the customer is and
retention of all of our customers.
use a wide variety of means to
gather information on all of our
customers.
. It is also important to learn about Reference
market dynamics, competition, Blazey, M.L. (1997), Insights To Performance Excellence,
threats and opportunities amongst American Society for Quality (ASQ), Quality Press,
other things. Milwaukee, WI.
Commentary
A continuation of a series on best practice from a leading figure in the field.
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