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Organizational Effectiveness Through Feedback Management
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>> Challenging Support Paradigm:
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Review our
Read our latest article on
and see how a major company put little thought or effort into their survey questionnaire.
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Learn how to conduct a survey project from questionnaire design
to survey administration
to data analysis.
 October 5-7, Washington DCNovember 7-11, DubaiFebruary 2011, Phoenix~~~
August 4 to 26, 2010~~~
Learn how to design a
December 8-9, Kuala Lumpur
~~~
View a short online presentation
summarizing the concept of surveying and outlining our courses.
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Bolton, Mass.
October 25-27, 2010
including our one-day
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Provides targeted assistance on your survey questionnaire and project while being mentored on good survey practices.
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 Contract Holder GS-02F-0126U
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Need more than
targeted survey consulting?
Great Brook specializes in
the design and execution of
Custom Survey Research Projects to meet
your individual needs.
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Get an expert's review of the feedback management processes in your organization for customers or other stakeholder groups --
or get a deep dive assessment of your survey program.
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Have a question about surveying you'd like to have answered in a future CLF article?
Please contact us.
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Self-help guidance for your survey project
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Private On-site Survey Workshops are available at your company. This may prove more cost effective and deliver immediate value to your survey program as we build your survey instrument in class.
Please contact us for details.
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For a comprehensive list
of survey automation tools
for your survey program.
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Problem Rectification or Problem Prevention?
If you have attended recent conferences in the customer support industry, you have probably been amazed at the number of products developed for our industry. Each conference brings a new technology vendor with a product addressing a particular problem area. Knowledge bases codify existing product information eliminating the need to reinvent the wheel. Call management systems direct and manage our human resources. Expert systems isolate relevant knowledge more quickly. Fax-back systems and web-based knowledge tools deliver answers to customers with no human interaction on our part. The list goes on... But step back for a moment and examine the goal of these products: their aim is almost solely to improve the efficiency of delivering support to our customers.
This article is from our Service Insights Newsletter.
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Am I some Luddite who is arguing against technology and the efficiency it can bring? Of course not. But it is a useful exercise to question the underlying assumptions of the paradigm from which we are working. Does more efficient rectification of customer problems increase a company's long term effectiveness? Is efficient problem rectification the best way for support to increase a company's competitiveness?
To answer these questions, ask your customers to describe the ideal state when they use information technologies. While some may say they want fast, accurate resolution of problems, most will prefer problem-free product use. A truly effective support organization will help achieve the latter objective. That means preventing as many problems as possible before they ever happen.
A problem prevention paradigm requires a changed mindset. One's planning horizon now must be longer term. Interaction with customers becomes an opportunity to scout for valuable information about product quality issues rather than a costly transaction to minimize. The definition of one's customers must now include internal groups, such as product engineering, and the support group's product expands to include capturing data and providing advice to these internal customers. Management's focus on controlling support costs or expanding service revenues must be augmented with identifying and exploiting synergies within the company. The support group's mission evolves from managing the end of the value-added supply chain to a strategic partnership throughout the value-added chain.
The pay back on these prevention activities will be hard to isolate and even harder to measure. You might ask if there even is a payoff! In a recent research study, I examined the impact of customer support's contributions to product quality improvement. I found that support cost per customer over successive product releases decreased far more rapidly -- by about 20% faster -- when customer support was an active participant throughout the product development process. And the customer received a higher quality product!
Implementing the problem prevention paradigm was a long and difficult change management process, and each company's support organization followed different paths. However, the rewards reaped were well worth the effort: a more challenging, rewarding, dynamic, and effective professional organization.
For information about a major research report on best practices in Design for Supportability, follow this link. You can request a complimentary copy of Chapter 1 of that report.
-- Fred Van Bennekom, Dr.B.A., Principal Great Brook Consulting
Please contact us with feedback on this article or other topics that you might find interesting.
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