Customer Loyalty Is Measure of Value Achieving Customer Satisfaction
Customer Loyalty Is Measure of Value Achieving Customer Satisfaction
Customer Loyalty Is Measure of Value Achieving Customer Satisfaction
"Pet Rocks" were a nice fad that made handsome profits for some people but
no one really thought that the value was there for the price paid. As a fad it
died in a very short time. If your business seeks to capitalize on this sort of
market place, just realize that it is short lived and the value comes from the
unique idea, not from some underlying value or need in society.
Any new idea or product is in the position of trying to balance the true
value and the "newness" component. A classic of this is the early Ford Motor
Company. Henry Ford insisted on driving the cost of cars down and making
them inexpensive so the market could become bigger and bigger rather that
selling fewer cars at much higher prices. Yet when the consumer tastes
evolved to wanting colors other than black, that was seen as a fad that would
increase the cost and would soon disappear. What almost disappeared was the
Ford Motor Company. The changes in customer tastes can be surprisingly fast, if
your processes do not have the cycle time capability to respond others are likely
to meet the changing customer desires.
Few organizations can wait on the market place to inform them of exactly
what the value of the product or service, even the Ford Motor Company barely
survived a miss reading. Yet in many cases if too much time is spent on
study and evaluation the profitable opportunity may have passed. Small
organizations have the ability to react and change rapidly, yet a few large
companies are able to keep their product pipeline filled with profitable
innovation. 3M each year expects to have 40% of the sales revenue from
products that are less than four (4) years old. In some businesses it takes that
long to get approval for model changes of the same product. One of the most
important competitive advantages in the market place today is speed. Cycle
time reduction in addition to eliminating waste has the real benefit of
providing more opportunities to learn. Every cycle is a learning opportunity.
For those who learn in every cycle, if
they just complete the cycle one more time than you in the same time frame,
will in short order build a huge competitive advantage because they have
learned and know more.
As can be seen from the graphic the customer value will drive re-design and
evolution of your products and services. This Voice of the Customer
combined with technical consideration drive the product and service
evolution. Those who are not staying ahead of this evolution will soon
suffer. Videos are a good example. The Beta Max from Sony were first to
market and from what I am told a superior technical product to VHS, yet
VHS with inexpensive players and
a marketing move to get a wider variety of movies drove the Beta Max from the
field. One of the places that we believe six sigma has great potential, that is
largely untapped, is in the marketing functions of most companies. When the
marketing, design, manufacturing and design all become a team focused on
driving customer value breakthrough has generally be achieved.
One method of measuring value is to consider the defects in the entire process
of delivery to the customer. Lower defect levels will be of higher value.
With six sigma the concept of rolled through yield is very important. If
defects occur in multiple places or stages before reaching the customer they
can all be added together to get the total number of defect per unit. Using a
Poisson approximation the
Yield = e **-DPU.
(Yield is equal to e with the exponent of minus the defects per unit). Note that
if you average 1 defect per unit the yield is 0.36788. Some have multiple
defects and about 36.7% will make it through without any defects. Where
anything that is less than the expectation of the customer is a defect. Doing
some simple math 63.3% of the customer interfaces will have a defect. There
are multiple surveys that indicate that less than 4% of customers will ever
complain. 4% times 63.3= 2.532 or approximately 3%. Which means that if
3% of your customers (each transaction being counted as a unit) complain then
you have a defect rate averaging 1 per unit.
This view of measuring defects from the perspective of the customer is essential
if you are going to move the improvements through six sigma from
incremental internal improvements to the dramatic customer focused changes
that are found with World Class Performance. All of the non-product
related defects are now considered in the yield. Here our yield is customer
satisfaction.
Measuring value is more than just considering the value of a product being
delivered to the customer as intended. The value has to consider the total
customer experience, including all of the support services such as logistics,
accounts receivable, etc.
The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it. Moliere
"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to
accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble." Helen Keller
{1880-1968 American Blind/Deaf Author & Lecturer}
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." Lao-
Tzu
He who finds diamonds must grapple in mud and mire because diamonds are
not found in polished stones. They are made. Henry B. Wilson
I have simply tried to do what seemed best each day, as each day
came. Abraham Lincoln
The smallest deed is better than the grandest intention. Larry Eisenberg