Customer Satisfaction
Improving Your Customer's Experience

The first, and often overlooked, key to achieving customer satisfaction is to measure your customer's true experience. Too often we jump to an easy solution without understanding the big picture.

This narrow focus is common and leads to:
a. Improving one step by slowing down another step in the process
b. Improving one step but the overall process is still slow

How is it that these results are so common when obviously no one would setout to achieve either one? When you look at your processes with "internal" eyes it's easy to focus very narrowly, to pinpoint a step that needs to be improved.

Let's look at "b" - Improving one step but the overall process is still slow.

Let's say there's a tall stack of applications waiting to be entered in the computer. That's an opportunity for improvement. You improve the application entry process and the stack of applications disappears. Applications are entered in 30 minutes instead of 1 hour. Turn around time is cut in half-your customer should be delighted. Right? No.

Step back and look at the WHOLE process that your customer experiences.

1. Front desk personnel opens the mail.
2. Front desk personnel delivers applications to data entry.
3. Applications are entered into the computer.
4. Applicant's credit history is checked.
5. Loan forms are printed and mailed out by mail room personnel.

Only step #3 was improved.

But your customer doesn't care how long it takes to put their application into the computer. Your customer's concern is when they'll receive the loan forms and can get their money.

If you had timed the enter process before improving step #3, you'd know that from the time an application arrives in the office to the time loans forms are mailed out takes 4 days.

After cutting step #3's time in half, the total time to get loan forms mailed out is still 4 days!

Improving step # 3 did not get the loan papers out the door any faster because more problems needed to be addressed. In order to shorten the entire cycle all the causes of delays in the loan processing system must be identified. Once you know why it takes so long for a loan application to move through each step you can address those causes. Solutions to those causes will shorten the process as your customer actually experiences it.

Then you'll have delighted customers telling their friends about your service.

P.S. Measuring the whole process will also help you avoid pitfall "a" from above, improving one step by slowing down another step in the process.

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