Voice of the Customer

Listen to your customer and change your business

Your Presenter – Brian Swanson

• Director of Enterprise Excellence at NACS, Inc. At NACS we design and manufacture custom

automated equipment for a range of industries. • Prior to NACS I worked in the Wood industry for

20 years. Part of that time was operating my own custom furniture manufacturing business and part was at Lexington Manufacturing, a contract wood component manufacturer.

The struggle with Empowerment

Our Objective

• To examine tools and concepts that will help organizations derive excellence and power from customer input while strengthening the sense of partnership that customers feel for your company.

• Note: The tools and steps involved are simple but not easy.

Enterprise Excellence Overview

Lean Structure

Why was your company started?

• Work with a group to create a list of the reasons why you believe people start companies.

• From your list choose the one that you feel best describes why businesses are started.

Why companies are started:

Why Companies are started:• “Most entrepreneurs are driven by their passion

to start their businesses out of wanting to help others create or obtain something.”– Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)

• “I began to learn what poverty meant. It was burnt into my heart then that my father had to

beg for work. And then and there came the resolve that I would cure that when I got to be a

man.”– Andrew Carnegie

• “I worked for other people for 15 years and to be honest I did not like the experience. I started my own business (working twice as hard for myself) and really enjoyed being my own boss and the feeling of being in control of my life and future.

One of the best things I ever did.”– Jsantiago

• “To maximize time with my daughter I get up at 4:30AM to work on developing the business.

Nothing is more motivating than my baby girl.”– jenifer888

Why Companies are started:

Companies are not started to serve customers

The Enterprise Excellence Cycle

Strategy Deployment

Business Review

Customer Interviews

Affinity Sort

Execution

• Goals of Employee Interviews:– Discover nuggets of insight within your

organization– Engage your organization in the VOC process– Uncover opportunities for improvement in your

organization– Prepare your organization to participate in the

VOC process

Business Review

• Ask difficult but open ended questions.• Don’t expect everyone to answer every

question.• Begin with a written survey and follow up with

interviews to capture actionable information.• Take advantage of this opportunity to

reinforce company values and objectives.

Business Review

• Beware of biases and reluctance to share the truth.– If you think there is a good chance people will

hold back information or not provide accurate answers, it may make sense to have an unbiased outsider conduct the surveys and interviews.

• See attached Business Review questionnaire example

Business Review

• The information gathered from the organization through the Business Review Process is the foundation for discussions with customers.

Business Review Customer Interviews

• Prepare questions for customers that will:– Clarify areas of disagreement among your internal

people– Reinforce important points where people seem

unsure– Provide clarity in areas where employees see

opportunities for improvement– Return actionable information that you can use in

your organization

Customer Interviews

“If I asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse”

– Henry Ford

• Customers don’t often know what they want until they see it.

• The types of questions we ask influence the quality of customer responses.

• See attached Discussion Guide

Customer Interviews

The Kano Quality Model

Didn’t do it at all Did it Very Well

Dissatisfied

Satisfied

IndifferentExcitement Needs

Basic Needs

Performance Needs

Time element

• Moderator– Conducts the Interview– Establishes a Safe Environment and Rapport– Executes Discussion Guide Questions

• Note Taker– Takes Verbatim Notes

• Observer– Listens and Watches– Writes down observations

• Body Language• Tone• Hesitation• Engagement

Customer Interviews

• Interviews are a team effort• The goal is to listen and not influence the

infromation• Interviewing requires preparation and practice• Biases must be set aside – capture customer’s

words• 35% of meaning is transferred verbally – 65%

is nonverbal

Customer Interviews

• Drill down to get to core needs by asking “Why?” or “Please tell me more about that”

– “The equipment I buy needs to have a 30 horsepower motor.”

– “Your lead times are short”

Customer Interviews

• Debrief as soon after the interview as possible.– Record impressions– Review and clarify notes– Summarize key points that were made by the

customer

Customer Interviews

• Compile all of the information from the interviews– Record every comment on an individual post-it

note• There will be a ton of them – that’s the intention

– Be sure to identify the source of the comment– As much as possible, record the exact customer

wording.

Customer Interviews

• Practice Interviewing in Groups– Choose the following roles:

• Moderator• Note Taker• Observer

Customer Interviews

• Goals of the sorting process:– Re-connect the people within your organization to

the VOC process– Get people physically involved– Find the hidden nuggets of wisdom that come

from the combination of your customers and your employees insights

– Bring your company one step closer to alignment

Affinity Sort

• Put all of the post-it notes on a wall

• At this point, don’t organize them, they should remain random

Affinity Sort

• Have every employee participate in sorting the post-it notes into affinity groups– Don’t predetermine titles to

the groupings – let them decide how they fit together and what the titles will be

– Some comments will be moved multiple times. Keep track of where the comments have been

– Encourage people to come through and re-sort multiple times

Affinity Sort

• The affinity groupings form themes that become the foundation for your corporate strategy.

Affinity Sort Strategy Deployment

• Listen to what the groupings are telling you– Comments that have been in multiple groupings

are significant– Groupings that you disagree with are meaningful– Take some time and discuss what the groupings

are telling you.– DON’T SHORT CUT THIS STEP

Strategy Deployment

• Report back to your employees and customers– Review the goals of the process– Highlight the steps that have been taken so far– Summarize your conclusions– Tell them what you heard when they answered

your questions– Feed back the nuggets of wisdom that you

discovered

Strategy Deployment

Example Conclusions:• We have four distinct customer groups that each has

very different requirements.– Medical R&D - looking for creativity and flexibility in the process that allows

them to actively participate in the design and build process.– Medical Production - require discipline and structure to ensure reliability and

efficient transition into the validation process.– Non-medical Production - require less rigor in documentation than medical

customers while still maintaining discipline and reliability.– Fabrication of parts - Looking for simple and efficient interactions that

ensure quality, cost, and delivery are optimized.

Strategy Deployment

• Our customers value the following in a machinery vendor:

Confidence• “Design, price, and concept are what determine who will get the project. Who will meet

the requirements of the project? Who will be most likely to make the delivery?”

• “I look for enough detail in the proposal that I can be confident that it is clear to both parties.”

• “When people are overly optimistic or aggressive just to get the business, that is very frustrating to me. I want the real story.”

• “Other vendor’s proposals were higher risk for us. We went with NACS because we had the most confidence in their concept.”

• “Integrity is the most important characteristic of a vendor. Do what you say you will do.”

Strategy Deployment

• Determine at MOST four strategic objectives for the next year.– The key is creating maximizing the experience for

your employees and your customers– Expect excellence– Understand that leaders create culture

Strategy Deployment

• The SDP Matrix:

Strategy Deployment

• The Scorecard

Strategy Deployment

• Communicate, Communicate, Communicate ...– Post SDP Matrices throughout your

organization– Talk about the process every day– Tell employees and customers stories

about what is happening at every opportunity

Execution

• Conduct Report-Outs– Teams present monthly to the company

– Progress made to date– Results– Next steps

– The report-outs have three objectives:– Celebrate results– Cross-pollinate ideas– Maintain accountability to the strategy

Execution

The Enterprise Excellence Cycle

Strategy Deployment

Business Review

Customer Interviews

Affinity Sort

Execution