Multiple and Diverse Customer Management

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We have all heard the term the customer is always right. But in business, some customers may be more right than others. In a perfect world, we would do everything that our customers want us to do and still make a generous profit. Reality is that we must make choices about meeting customer requirements and prioritize which attributes and services we provide, which ones we postpone until a later date, and which customer requirements are not worth our time and resources. The work we did with the Quality Function Deployment Model will help us with making these production prioritization decisions. It can help us decide which customer requirements are too costly to implement or impractical from an engineering and design point of view. It can also identify where there is a performance gap between our product and the competitors products. It will also indicate which requirements are the most important, and the house of quality will generate a prioritized list of the customer requirements to address. It is possible that meeting the requirements of one customer will conflict with the needs of another. The QFD process can help us with that decision too, if we consider future customer potential value along with the QFD evaluations. Let's say that a building materials manufacturer decides to offer a new railing design. One customer would like the railing post to be round and another wants them to be square. The QFD process will determine if both styles are viable or if there are any tooling, materials or cost issues, as well as any possible problems with the design. If no issues are identified, but there is a production constraint that will only allow one of these styles to be produced, then it becomes a simple math problem based on which product is likely to return more sales to the company. However, there are other processes we can put in place to create the best customer experience and help us manage conflicting customer requirements and demands. Let's start by defining what we mean by the customer experience. The customer experience starts with the first interaction with your business and continues into what we hope will be a happy and long lasting relationship. To become a good partner to your customer, you need to understand their needs. This can begin with making it easy for the customer to do business with you, delivering what they want in a timely, efficient manner, and creating an enjoyable experience for the customer. You must put yourself in your customer's shoes. What is it they want from you and what do they expect to get out of your relationship? Do you know the challenges they face? To make this happen, you can establish certain priorities. The first priority is to create a connection. A strong relationship will keep a customer loyal. When product availability is tight, prices go up, shipments are late, or anything else goes wrong. The second priority is to be responsive. Nothing frustrates a customer more than when a problem occurs and they cannot reach the company hiring welltrained, customer service agents who are taught to deal with customers in an empathetic and effective manner will avoid a lot of problems. The third priority is capturing and measuring feedback. Quality, function deployment, customer relationship management, software, focus groups, market research studies, customer panels, and social media monitoring are just some of the ways in which we can capture, analyze and provide feedback on the customer experience. The fourth priority is continuous improvement. You can take the results of the customer feedback and use them to develop marketing strategies, improve product performance, upgrade service, refine product choices, and lead innovation. These are some of the ways to improve customer experience and enhance customer satisfaction. The question which customer is right? Can be answered by understanding customer requirements and demands.