The draft. The one day that every team and every fan is the eternal optimist. In fact, it is the only day that there is any optimism as a Detroit Lion fan. But we have hope. If they win their next 48 games in a row, Matt Millen, President of the Detroit Lions, will have a .500 winning percentage.
Well, let’s say we all had a draft; a draft of the top attributes you need in a Voice of Customer measurement system. The difference between this draft and the NFL draft is that these picks are “can’t miss.”
With the number one pick in the 2007 Voice of Customer draft
… A high quality measurement: accurate, precise and reliable. A
measurement is only as good as the quality of the measurement. In fact,
a measurement that doesn’t have accuracy, precision and reliability can
do more harm then good. It will give you a false sense of security and
can lead to bad decisions.
With the number two pick in the 2007 Voice of Customer draft …
Predictability. It is great to know where you are, but we also need to
know where we are going. A high quality measurement of satisfaction
should predict the future. If customers are satisfied they will remain
customers, buy more and recommend us to others. If customers are not
satisfied they won’t come back and may even pass their negative views
on to others. Behavior tells us what has happened and satisfaction
tells us what will happen.
With the number three pick in the 2007 Voice of Customer…
Actionability. A voice of customer measurement should be actionable. It
should provide us with the insight to make changes to improve
satisfaction and future behaviors. All too often poor methodologies are
used that do not bring actionability. First, we need a complex set of
measurements, not a single question. A single question provides no
actionability. Secondly we need to have a methodology to drive our
actionability. It is not about what people complain the most about, it
is about what changes can I make that will improve their future
behavior.
With the number four pick in the 2007 Voice of Customer Draft
… Don’t chase your competitors…chase your customers and prospects. It
is important to have benchmarks, and they need to be accurate, precise
and reliable to have any value. But, your objective is not to match
your competitor. Your objective is to meet your customers and prospects
needs. Focus on what will satisfy your customers and prospects, and
change their behavior in a positive manner.
With the number five pick in the 2007 Voice of Customer Draft
… Measure, Measure, Measure. And do it on a continuous basis. The most
important asset any company has is its customers. Let’s measure them on
a continuous basis, because we cannot manage what we cannot measure.
I’m really not following your logic here. “Killer app”, as you described it at the beginning, referred to the app that drove major adoption of a platform. WP and spreadsheets drove major adoption of PCs, and email drove major adoption of the Internet.
So what is online bill payment driving major adoption of? online banking? I know a million people who will disagree with you, if that’s your contention.
It seems to me you’re not talking about “adoption” as much as highlighting the connection between satisfaction and use of online bill payment. And as any good statistician knows (hell, even us bad ones know it), correlation does not mean causality.
It’s just as possible that the most satisfied customers decide to go ahead and go thru the pain of setting up online bill payment with their preferred bank as it is that paying bills online CAUSES a customer to be satisfied.
The use of online bill payment will result in increased satisfaction by the online banking customers. The more bills the pay the more they are satisfied. Higher satisfaction results in better behavior, such as likelihood to buy additional products.
The beauty of the American Customer Satisfaction Index is not only do we get a score upon which to measure, we also get what we call an impact. The impact tells us the causation between the drivers of satisfaction, satisfaction and future behavior of our users.
The argument of causation vs. correlation is a good one, and one that most measurement methodologies don’t address. Fortunately for us, the American Customer Satisfaction Index technology answers that question for us.
-Larry