1. Process Improvement: “The Customer is not the Problem”
Rosa West PhD, MBA, LMHC, LMFT
This product was supported by the Florida Department of Children & Families Substance Abuse and Mental Health Program Office funding.

2. Objectives Identify key organizational issues in the change process
Actively involve customers on change projects
Survey and educate customers about new improvements
Assess the likelihood of success in undertaking change projects
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4. Understand and Involve the Customer
The most important factor in process improvement
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5. Understand and Involve the Customer
Most predictive factor in determining successful change
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6. Understand and Involve the Customer
You must walk in the shoes of the customer repeatedly
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7. Understand and Involve the Customer
You must:
Assume you do not understand the customer’s problems
Assume you do not understand what they need
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8. Why Should You Care? Times have changed:
Customers have escalating and evolving needs
Competitors are delivering on these demands
If you don’t, you will be out of business
Customers are more informed
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9. Why Should You Care? Business Case:
Dissatisfied customers usually don’t complain
Dissatisfied customers usually do defect
Dissatisfied customers tell everyone they know
Dissatisfied customers encourage others to defect
Result lost business…..forever!!
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10. Understand and Involve the Customer
Build a Bridge to Understanding the Customer
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11. Understand and Involve the Customer
Come from behind the desk and consider what it’s like to be a customer in your agency
What’s it like to come in the front door?
What’s the intake process like?
How are calls received?
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12. Understand and Involve the Customer
When you look from start to end of the treatment process you can begin to understand how the customer feels
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14. Understand and Involve the Customer
Take time to involve the customer
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15. Understand and Involve the Customer
Get the customer’s reactions
Seek their advice about making improvements
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16. Understand and Involve the Customer
When you know and understand the customer you can make improvements that best serve them
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17. Identifying the Customer
Not all Customers are the same….
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18. Identifying the Customer
Process Improvement: The Customer is Not the Problem
5/20/2018
Identifying the Customer
Important to “segment” or differentiate your customers
Use existing data to facilitate this process
R. West PhD
Rosa West PhD, MBA, LMHC, LMFT Westcare Wellness & Consulting, LLC

19. Identifying the Customer
Segmenting means to sort customers into groups based on similar characteristics
Allows understanding of the differences in customer groups
What they like - what they don’t like
How to tailor service offerings to better meet needs of each group
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20. Identifying the Customer
By identifying and tracking customer segments over time
Determine which segments are most profitable to target and retain
Determine which segments to
deemphasize
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21. Identifying the Customer
Use data to determine:
Type of services used
Quantities of use
Customer’s organization
Customer’s function
Other demographic variables:
Location
Type of business
Schedule of Services
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22. Involving the Customer
Conduct Targeted Customer Interactions:
Existing data may not measure what matters to the customer
Important to take time to measure the right things
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23. Involving the Customer
Targeted interactions allow you to learn more about your customers:
First review data from prior steps
Look at additional sources - complaints
Develop list of questions
Go talk with customers
Be open to whatever they want to discuss
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24. Select Appropriate Measures
Customer satisfaction:
How well are we meeting needs and satisfaction?
How well are we meeting specific performance criteria?
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25. Select Appropriate Measures
Market share:
Proportion of business in market that you provide to customers
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26. Select Appropriate Measures
Market share:
Ex. Combination of percentage of market for variety of services
What percentage of services are provided per County in comparison to State?
What percentage of services do you provide?
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27. Select Appropriate Measures
Customer retention:
Do you maintain ongoing relationships with customers and retain their business?
Customer acquisition:
Rate at which you attract new customers
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28. Select Appropriate Measures
Customer profitability:
Net profit of a customer segment accounting for unique expenses to support that customer
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29. Selecting Appropriate Measures
Data needs:
Collected
Transformed
Analyzed
Summarized
Displayed
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30. Selecting Appropriate Measures
There is no one “right” measure
Be flexible to change measures
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31. Data Collection THINK before collecting customer data…
Collection may be time consuming
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32. Data Collection
Collecting data from customers raises their expectations
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33. Data Collection
Only collect the amount of data you can analyze and respond to in timely fashion
Garbage in = Garbage out
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34. Data Collection Methods
Existing Data
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35. Existing Data
Financial data, ordering data, delivery data, complaints data
Steps to using existing data:
Select appropriate data
Define data into measures
Determine manner in which data will be computing into information
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36. Advantages of Existing Data
Easy to gather
Doesn’t require involving the customer
Often viewed as “objective” or “real”
Can be summarized over time
Allows quick review of current situation
Typically used to convince management that something needs to change
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37. Disadvantages of Existing Data
Quality of the data may be poor - not recorded in consistent fashion
Data may be incomplete
Extraction of data may be time consuming
Not collected with analysis in mind
May have limited usefulness
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38. Data Collection Methods
Observation
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39. Observations Simple to do
Great reality check on how things really happen
Very useful to understand new features, amenities you could provide
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40. Advantages of Observations
Yield real time data
Provide understanding of context
Outsiders can be used so data has little bias
See things that escape notice in general course of work
Access to information people may not want to discuss in interviews
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41. Disadvantages of Observations
Can be costly if have to train observers
Limitations due to people’s concerns about anonymity and being observed
Presence of observer may influence process
Can be hard to code and analyze
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42. Data Collection Methods
Interviews & Focus Groups
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43. Interviews and Focus Groups
Difference:
Interviews are conducted with individuals
Focus groups consist of multiple participants
Good for collecting qualitative data:
Information not readily categorized and coded
Explore why customers feel they way they do
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44. Interviews and Focus Groups
Questions are usually open-ended in nature
Let customers respond in their own words
Provides insight into customer perceptions
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45. Advantages of Interviews/Focus Groups
Allow flexibility in data collection
Can gather unexpected data and ask unplanned questions
Provide more complete customer perspective
Facilitate communication and customer relations
Useful for generating ideas for improvement
Allow for problem-solving during the actual meeting
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46. Disadvantages of Interviews/Focus Groups
Require skilled interviewers or they can backfire
Produce results that can be difficult to analyze and interpret with assistance
Can produce biased results
Social desirability or peer pressure (focus groups) can be influential
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47. Data Collection Methods
Surveys
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48. Surveys Doing a good survey is NOT simple
Obtaining useful information requires skill and practice
The method (e.g. doing a web survey) is just part of the process
Need to consider issues of anonymity and confidentiality
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49. Surveys There is no “magical” number of questions
Response rates are key to evaluating surveys -- how their data can be used
Don’t do a survey unless you plan to act on the results
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50. Advantages of Surveys Used to gather large amounts of data quickly
Permit anonymity - thus honest feedback
Use sampling techniques to minimize bothering customers
Provide results that generalize to larger population of customers
Data can be summarized and analyzed using statistical tests
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51. Disadvantages of Surveys
Not as flexible as interviews/focus groups
Raise customer expectations that things will improve
Low response rates and nonresponse bias can lead to faulty conclusions
Data gathered may not generalize to larger population
Expensive in terms of development, administration, analysis
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52. Gather and Analyze Customer Data
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53. Gathering Customer Data
Pilot test data collection tools
Determine dates and locations for data collection
Publicize data collection effort (if relevant)
Start data collection period
Collect the data
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54. Gathering Customer Data
Provide follow-up reminders if applicable
End data collection period
Enter data into the appropriate information technology (IT) system
Check/transform the data as needed
Analyze the data and product summary graphs, charts, tables
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55. Discuss Findings
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56. Discuss Findings
Data is not worth anything if not reviewed for findings and recommended actions
If issues are identified, some kind of action is imperative:
Customers share dissatisfaction and nothing happens -- organization has failed them twice
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57. Discuss Findings Actions can be thought of as service recovery:
Recovery can impact tremendously on satisfaction and loyalty
In general customers have basic expectations
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58. Basic Expectations of Customers
Be competent
Explain things
Be respectful
Keep me informed
Be on my side
Play fair
Protect me from catastrophe
Keep your promise
Fulfill obligations
Learn my business and work with me
Share my sense of urgency
Be prepared
Be flexible
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Source: Parasuraman, Berry, & Zeithaml, 1991.

59. Interpret Findings Try to see the forest through the trees
Organize your data and findings to tell a story
Get front-line employees involved
Involve customers if they are willing
Organize findings to report both good news and areas for improvement
Develop a presentation summarizing the measurement process, method, findings, and recommendations
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60. Take Action Taking action is the bottom line
If nothing else -- you must provide feedback to customers on findings
Won’t cooperate with future data collection
May negatively impact on their image of you
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61. Take Action
Customer data is KEY ingredient in way the organization does business
Customer data should DRIVE organizational improvement
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62. Take Action Remember that improvement is a process:
Outstanding service doesn’t come over night
It’s not impossible
Just takes commitment to customer satisfaction and quality
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63. Questions & Final Comments?
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