Do you really know what your customers think?
THE DISCUSSION
When was the last time you conducted a customer survey? If you already conduct surveys when was the last time you actually looked at the results and made management decisions based on these results? When was the last time you actually talked to a customer either in person or by phone? Even more basic (you have already heard this one) who are your customers? I know some of you are saying “I’m the IT guy, I don’t work with customers. I just keep the hardware running and the applications working”. Hmm.
As a government IT manager I may not have the “traditional” money paying customer but I have customers. I know who my customers are; the ones internal to my organization and the ones external. Do you know yours? It’s my job to keep them all happy and informed. So why this topic today. Well, last week we had a VIP with email and VTC problems tell us that “IT is broke”. Ouch! The problems were easily fixed and he is now happy but “IT is broke” hurts. The question I asked myself is are we doing enough to manage our customers and the customer expectations? The short answer is obviously not.
Recently I read an interesting article related to this subject What It Takes to Succeed Now as a CIO. There are two main customer items to note in the article. First, 53 percent of CIOs said acquiring and retaining customers was a business driver important to IT decisions. Yet 49 percent of these CEOs rated IT’s performance against this driver as “fair” or “poor” while 5 percent said IT did not support this driver at all. Second, out of the top ten IT agenda items business executives rated the acquiring and retaining customers driver as number one. CIOs rated this in a tie for eighth. Ouch again.
So why the disparity between the CEO and IT? Well, I believe it all goes to my question, when was the last time you talked to your customer? Again, both internal and external. The same article mentions that IT leadership only spends 23 percent of their time talking to non IT executive leadership. That may be enough but I still need to think on that figure. Is a quarter of your time enough time spent discussing and understanding this customers needs and expectations.
The most telling number in the article shows that IT leadership only spends 11 percent of their time talking to external partners or customers. Note that the figure includes time talking to partners; it’s not just customer time. It that enough time when the number one CEO driver is acquiring and retaining customers?
After reading the article and outlining, as shown below, the things I already have in place I believe I can do better working with customers and their expectations. I already have a couple of ideas and after I test and refine them provide an update.
Remember; we have to align the IT strategy with the business strategy. Note that the article mentions the number one CIO IT driver was improving end-user workforce productivity (this was number 4 on the CEO list).
THE ACTION
1. Develop an online customer survey. The simpler the better. I use the “rate this item from 1-5″. This seems to work fairly well and gives fine survey results.
2. Ensure this new survey exports the online data in a spreadsheet or database format.
3. Include a comment area where the customer can write in free text.
4. Insure that all customers who call in a trouble ticket receive a “Your ticket is closed” verification email.
5. Include the link to the survey in all “closed” ticket emails.
6. Assign one person in your organization to be the survey master. This person will consolidate the data and compile in an easy to understand executive format. This person also works up the initial analysis of the data which is presented to management.
7. Management looks at the data with one thought; an action plan. What is shown in the data that is actionable?
8. Develop an action plan, assign a point of contact, and move out.
9. Follow up, follow up, and follow up.
HINT: Remedy can easily be configured to include a link in emails to your survey (you have a Remedy programmer correct?).
-DO IT NOW AND ENGAGE-
