Customer and Market Focus

Gain a rock-solid understanding of what your customers require and how well you meet those requirements to build a loyal customer base

One of the most dangerous and pervasive assumptions organizations make is that they instinctively know what their customers want. They talk to customers every day. They market products and services that customers purchase. They listen to customer complaints, respond to customer requests, and solve customer problems. With all of this contact, they assume they understand their customers.

Too often, they are wrong.

This workshop targets the foundation of any organization’s business: understanding customer requirements to achieve customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. Through proven tools and techniques and the best practices of world-class companies, it will show how a systematic approach to understanding customers and markets can improve performance by:

• Eliminating dangerous assumptions
• Determining market segments and customer groups
• Identifying key customer requirements
• Establishing customer listening and learning posts
• Strengthening customer relationships
• Assessing and improving customer contact processes
• Creating an effective complaint management process
• Measuring customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction
• Aligning the entire management system to attract and retain loyal customers

This workshop presents the tools, processes, and approaches used by high-performing companies to achieve customer-driven excellence. More importantly, it helps you understand how they work and how you can apply them to your organization. Through the lessons learned by Baldrige Award winners and other world-class companies, you will be prepared to implement proven approaches to improving customer satisfaction.

 Participants are encouraged to bring to the workshop their organization’s approaches to identifying and communicating customer requirements, strengthening customer relationships, and assessing and improving customer satisfaction for evaluation and discussion. At the conclusion of this workshop you will be prepared to implement systematic approaches to those processes that are critical to attracting and retaining loyal customers.

Customer and Market Focus Course Outline

Striving for Customer-Driven Excellence

• The Strategic Impact of Customer-Driven Excellence
• Dangerous Assumptions
• The Total Satisfaction Pay-Off
• How a Customer Focus Shapes the Management System
• Customer-Driven Role Models

Acquiring Customer and Market Knowledge

• Determining Market Segments and Customer Groups
• 10 Tactics for Identifying Key Customer Requirements
• Customer Value: From Satisfaction to Delight
• 5 Ways to Communicate Customer Requirements Throughout the Organization
• How Leading Companies Listen to and Learn from Their Customers

Strengthening Customer Relationships

• Relationship Strategies for Different Customer Groups
• The 5 Types of Relationship Requirements and What They Mean to Your Organization
• Assessing and Improving Customer Contact Processes
• E-Commerce and Its Impact on Customer Relationships
• Involving Key Customers in Planning, Product/Service Development, and New Business Opportunities
• Complaint Management that Improves Customer Satisfaction and Eliminates the Causes of Complaints
• How World-Class Companies Retain Their Customers

Measuring Customer Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction

• Surveys and Other Tools
• Criteria for Effective Customer Satisfaction Surveys
• Beyond the Traditional Survey: Customer Value and Competitive Comparisons
• Best-Practice Surveys: Weekly, Transactional, Personal and More
• Relating Customer Data to Internal Performance Measures
• Using Customer Satisfaction Information to Drive Organizational Improvements

Strategies for Aligning Your Entire Management System to Create and Retain Loyal Customers