Customer Focus

1
Customer Focus

• Cleary University
• Student PowerPoint
• Patricia L. Baker
• 2008

2
Objectives

• Explain the customer-supplier relationship
• Examine internal and external customers
• Define customer quality
• Distinguish Moments of Truth

3
Customer

• Early a person whose custom it was to seek the
  work of a particular artisan
• Current one who uses or purchases the goods or
  services of another
• Business world the person or unit receiving the
  product or service which is the output of a
  process or system

4
Customer-Supplier Work Process
Input
Actions
Output
Output
Customer
Supplier
5
Work System
6
Internal and External Customers

• Internal Customers
• Depend on us daily
• Help produce my employers products/ services
• Use what I make or do (output)

7
Internal and External Customers

• External Customers
• Use depends on what our organizations provides or
  makes
• Pay-off for what we do
• Choose to do business with our company

8
Customer Evaluation

• Expectations
• Outcomes
• Satisfaction
• Quality

9
Expectations

• Preconceived ideas of what will occur
• Based on
• Previous experience
• Recommendations
• Advertisements
• Desired outcomes

10
Positive Customer Outcomes

• Expectations are met
• Customer is
• Satisfied
• Positive impression, pleased
• Impact
• Become allies
• Repeat business
• Spread the word

11
Negative Customer Outcomes

• Expectations are not met
• Customer is
• Unsatisfied
• Antagonistic
• Negative impression
• Impact
• Damaging word-of-mouth advertising
• Lost revenue from current and potential customers
• Challenging relationship

12
Customer Quality

• Quality In Fact meeting your own specifications
• Quality In Perception meeting your customers
  expectations

Townsend, Commit to Quality
13
Moments of Truth

• Those times a customer comes in contact with an
  organization and forms a favorable or unfavorable
  attitude
• Surrogate indicator of quality

14
Moments of Truth

• Phone communications
• Letters
• Reasonable explanations
• Respect
• Courtesy
• Compassion in healthcare

15
Customers Remember

• Attitude
• Promises
• Small stuff
• Timely responses

16
Key Principles for Customer Focus

• Shared goals
• Clear expectations
• Positive working relationship
• With internal recipients of the service
• With external recipients of the product or
  services
• With suppliers

17
Future Class Discussion

• Evaluating performance
• Meeting or exceeding customer expectations
• Complaints are good
• Dealing with upset customers
• Its a Dogs World

18
Keys to a Customer Focus

• Strong relationship between communication and
  customer satisfaction
• Lack of respect, care, concern impact customer
  satisfaction
• Positive interactions result in higher approval
  ratings

19
References

• Townsend P, Gebhardt J. Commit to Quality. John
  Wiley Sons, NY, NY 1992.
• Leland K, Bailey K. Customer Service for Dummies,
  2nd Ed. Wiley Publishing, Inc. NY, NY, 1999.
• Cottrell D, Layton MC. Customer Focus Listen Up,
  Sales and Customer Service. CornerStone
  Leadership, Dallas TX. 2002.

20
Class Discussion

• Answer the questions noted within the text
• Review of Healthcare Customer-Supplier papers