Do you have your ear to the ground?

customer measures – Aragorn has his ear to the ground

He checks whether they are getting closer to the orcs.  After all he is a Ranger and a Dunedain and has tuned senses from decades in the bush.

Meanwhile the orcs are doing this:

customer measures: the orcs meanwhile pick up the scent

By sniffing the air they can tell the pursuers are gaining on them.  So they run faster and get away.  Not that it helps them in the end.  On the last day of the chase Legolas sees the morning sky:

customer measures: as an elf, Legolas’s measurement system is a little more esoteric

With the wisdom and intuition of being an elf, he says “a red sun rises – blood has been spilled this night”.

You don’t need the gifts of an elf to use customer measures

Are you reading the signs?  Do you use customer measures to gauge your effectiveness in your market place?  Maybe you have adopted a strategic approach to running your organisation.  But how do you know it is working?  Sure you will follow your income and expenses.  But customer measures keep your ear nice and close to the ground.  Actually, here are three sets of customer measures.  One set measures the effectiveness of your customer experience process.  Another measures the effect on the customers and the last measures the effect on your finances.  This list is by no means exhaustive.

Customer Measures:  Process

Process customer measures are lead measures which tell you whether you are doing the right customer-directed activities:

• How quickly you return customer queries and comments.
• System up times.  How available your systems are for you clients.
• Percentage of on time delivery.  Is the sticker still red when your pizza reaches the customer?
• Error rate in capturing customer data or delivering completed work.
• Returns, rejects and do-overs.  Fixes cost time and customer goodwill.

If these measures are all in the positive it is likely you will have satisfied customers.  But you will not know this for sure unless you ask your customers.

Customer measures: Experience

Gathering customer satisfaction data can be a little tricky but you can consider the following ways to obtain feedback:

• At the point of collection:.  When they have completed the payment or your session with a client, you can ask for feedback.  At our local hardware store there is a little button I can press to grade my experience as ‘excellent, average or bad’.
• Order forms and invoices:  Include a box for comments.
• Online:  Do you have a “tell us what you think” block in your postings?
• Sales Reps:  Get your sales and distribution team to ask the customer for their experience.
• Newsletters:  Ask one or two questions about your readers’ experience.
• Telephone:  Your voicemail message could prompt customers for feedback.
• Comment sheets:  Include a response sheet in your shipments.
• Support calls:  Make certain the responses your customer service reps collect make it back into your operations and strategy conversations.

Customer measures:  Growth

If the previous sets of measures look positive you should see this in your financial results.  You can check this by considering your:

• Customer retention:  How many times do they return?
• Market share:  What percentage of your target market come to you for products or service?
• Purse share:  What proportion of a given customer’s spend in your category do they spend on you?
• Volume by customer:  Are they consistently buying at the same rate.
• Growth by customer:  Are they growing in the use your offer?
• Acquisition:  Is the number of customers or prospects growing?
• Referrals:  Are your current customers referring others to you?

Maybe if Boromir had put his ear to the ground instead of chasing after Frodo and the ring he would have avoided this:

Customer measures: ignore them at your peril

What is bearing down on you?

Are you enthralled by the wrong solution?

Or do you have your ear to the ground?
Are you picking up the signs?