Insights

Delivering Quality – 10 key questions to ask your customers

13 Dec 2010 Project Management & Methodology, Software Support and Maintenance

In the years I’ve been in IT service delivery management, I’ve always been somewhat surprised how some organisations show little or no interest in measuring customer satisfaction levels on an operational level. To me it remains a mystery how these organisations believe they can deliver a quality service to their customers.
 
Ok so larger organisations (think IBM or HP) may have well thought out processes in place to measure customer satisfaction e.g. well-defined surveys sent to customers as a call has been closed. But smaller organisations seem somewhat hesitant to adopt similar approaches. Perhaps they see them as too formal or over the top (?)

Isn’t the measurement of service levels alone good enough?

No! Sure, the majority of organisations have service levels in place around the resolution of incidents, response times and application availability amongst others and believe this is sufficient to measure quality. Whilst I believe it is an absolute must to have defined service levels, remember that the customer is always looking for this little bit more aka ‘added value’.

What should a customer satisfaction survey look like?

Typically a customer survey is aimed at two different groups – 1) the end users and 2) the supplier management function. Depending on the size of the organisation, the latter could either be a corresponding service delivery function, the traditional IT management function, or an application management function.
 
The main reason for approaching two different groups is simply to ensure a balanced view as well as the opportunity to spot any perception issues as it is not uncommon that end users may be less happy than the actual supplier management function.

Great, so what should I ask? 10 key questions...

I believe there are 5 key areas where feedback is needed in order to have a good understanding of end user experience. They are...

1. Understanding - Did we understand your requirement and ask for the relevant information?
2. Technical knowledge - Did we demonstrate sound technical knowledge of your business area?
3. Interpersonal skills - Did we demonstrate good interpersonal skills (e.g. communication, politeness and attitude)?
4. Speed - How satisfied are you with the speed with which your ticket was picked up and resolved?
5. Communication - How well did we keep you informed and involved during resolution / implementation?

In addition, in order to gain a good understanding of how the supplier management function perceives the services the following areas need to be assessed...

1. Service levels - Have satisfied are you with the achieved service levels?
2. End-user perception - How satisfied are you with the overall score coming from the user group survey?
3. Working relationships - How would you rate the working relationship between the service delivery / supplier management function?
4. Recognised value / innovation - How would you rate the added value / innovation provided?
5. Quality of IT services - How would you rate the overall quality of services delivered?

What next?

Now we have tackled what feedback is required, some thought needs to be put into the scoring mechanism / target and frequency.

• When using a numerical scoring mechanism, it is important to provide a guideline around what the scores actually mean to ensure the people scoring the service have a common understanding, for example: <6 Unacceptable / 6 – 6.9 Inadequate / 7-7.9 Acceptable / 8-8.9 Good / 9-9.9 Excellent / 10 Outstanding.
• Ensure a target has been set which is also acknowledged by the customer
• The frequency of measuring should depend on the volume of activity. The general tendency with large support contracts is monthly, however quarterly or 6 monthly may be more appropriate. Remember however that a low frequency could result into potential fundamental issues being noticed too late.

And don't forget...

You would be surprised how many times a customer survey is carried out and no follow-up actions take place or planned in. Needless to say, once targets have been established its essential to ensure appropriate actions are in place to meet them, especially if some targets are repeatedly missed. Remember that this is a two-way street and actions may be on either side. The end goal should always be keep / improve the quality of the service and provide the earlier mentioned “little bit more” to the customer.