Undoubtedly, in an environment as complex as the current one with clients increasingly demanding in quality, price and deadlines, we must make them be at the center of the organization to achieve their satisfaction and knowledge of their behavior and needs, thus achieving competitive advantages.
It is well known that the trend is increasingly more important that the client does not buy the intrinsic characteristics of a product, but what he wants is to cover his needs through that specific product and all the services and added values associated with it.
Therefore, the prominence of the product itself is diluted as one more component of the value that is brought to the customer. In a more concrete way, it can be said that a car dealer is not a company that sells cars, but rather an organization that solves a transportation and mobility problem for its customers, using a specific product called an automobile.
In this guiding thread, more and more companies are concerned with putting the customer at the center of the organization and thus improve the value they offer through excellent service, thus achieving competitive advantages.
When an organization decides to start an improvement project putting the client at the center of the organization, from our practical experience at Improven Consultores we propose a methodology based on an initial diagnosis with the following elements:
- Analysis of the corporate strategy evaluating the value proposition to the client as well as whether they perceive a differential positioning to their competitors. Knowledge and segmentation of customers, to better identify their needs and behavior, understanding that each customer is unique and that they have different needs and behaviors. In this sense, the concept of customer segment is used (in some cases looking for micro-segmentation) trying to make this segmentation based on behavior. Analysis of customer satisfaction and identification of drivers of satisfactionto identify areas for improvement based on these drivers, both at the level of strategy, processes, people and technology. In this sense, the use of a correct methodology and statistical tools is essential for the extraction of all possible information. Analysis of key processes from the customer's point of view based on the analysis of their satisfaction. In this sense, an analysis of the entire organization must be made at the level of its process map to identify the critics in each case (those that have the greatest impact on customers), such as logistics and supply chain management., order management, corporate culture management, purchasing management, etc. In this sense, it is also necessary to take into account how technology supports these processes.Analysis of corporate culture in the area of customer relations. In this sense, it is important to identify in the people of the organization, the degree of development of the "customer-oriented" competence.
Based on this prior analysis, it is common to redefine many elements of the company integrated into an action plan in the following areas:
- Strategy, reviewing the strategic plan and associated tactical plans: marketing plan, sales plan, etc. Processes, designing the process map and related processes and threads. Within the best practices, it is convenient to define indicators and objectives for the processes. People, managing the corporate culture through values and using elements such as management by values, training, internal communication, etc. Technology helping to execute the defined strategy and processes.
As we can see, putting the client at the center of the organization is an important change at all levels of it and where methodology and experience are very important elements.
In many occasions, when it is commented that a company must be customer-oriented, it is often thought that this is a job in the sales, marketing and / or customer service area, since they are the areas in direct contact with the customer. This is a mistake since that is the tip of the iceberg, but generally, there are other areas where an improvement action can affect a spectacular increase in the degree of customer satisfaction.
Recently, in a project carried out by Improven Consultores in a company in the industrial capital goods sector to put the customer at the center of the organization, as part of the project, a reengineering of supply chain management processes was developed to improve the customer value proposition achieving the following results:
- Increased customer satisfaction: Due to the increase in quality and speed of customer service, the satisfaction rate increased by 43% in A customers and by 29% in B customers, representing more than 80 % of total turnover between both groups. Increased business efficiency and effectiveness: As a result of the increased reliability of production lead times, the sales force managed to increase its sales efficiency by 32% in less than a year. Improvement in the average profitability of customers A by 6 points because the higher satisfaction made them less price sensitive. 42% reduction in stock levels. This result, in itself, had a highly positive impact on the company's income statement.
In addition, as a consequence of the project, other more qualitative objectives were achieved such as:
- Greater knowledge of customers.Mejor management sales force.Mayor s atisfacción of staff due to the new culture as well as greater customer satisfaction. Freeing up human and material resources that could be relocated to tasks of greater added value for the company.
So far, some quantifiable data and some more qualitative than in themselves, fully justify that a project focused on the client must be supported by a global vision, but we allow ourselves to reflect on the reader, many other benefits, perhaps less quantifiable, but with a positive impact on the company's income statement.
