1. The Number 1 Source To Collect Valuable Information
About Your Business Is From Your Employees
A key takeaway from here is to gain input towards better understanding
your customers, find the time to listen to the voice of your
frontline employees. If you don't, you'll know less about your customers
than you should.
Several ideas come to mind to help make this work:
 Schedule time of management to be with front-line employees on a regular
basis.
 In a call center, the supervisor may work with a customer service person
by alternating calls.
 Manufacturing facilities offers many ways for first hand observation to
take place...nothing better than to see a manager actually working in the
plant.
 Restaurants need more than the occasional manager coming up to
customers asking if there meal & service was excellent.
 Management from time to time need to actually “wait” the tables or be a
food runner from time to time. This will add value to their inputs both to
their employees and “up the chain” of management.
 Management in Department stores need to be out front instead of in their
offices or storerooms. A little bit of interaction with a customer,
merchandising and working in the fitting rooms will go a long way to
giving them a greater pulse on the action. In the fitting rooms, one hears
first hand the perception that customers have about the store and product.
Another area that you have to look at to “Unlock customer Value” is be
segmenting your customer base. Learn and differentiate what makes up that

2. “super elite” group of loyal customers that you have. The more accurate you are
in defining that special group the greater your overall customer satisfaction rate
you will have. Take for instance a program that Apple perfected...
Apple has had a program that they developed which involves alignment of the
customer with a key ingredient within their overall formula for success. The
program is by invitation only to select customers and asks for routine feedback
up to 2X per month. This “selective” process by invitation only allows you to
gain specific feedback to focus on the type of customer that you are keying on.
For example, when Apple puts together a number of factors to come up with its
“premier” customer, they can see better ways to engage and partner with them if
they know what makes these “premier” customers tick.
As you gain confidence on the insights and observations of your frontline people
you will gain a much greater pulse on your environment and business. Never
forget that a focus on quality and customer satisfaction is good business.
Everything happens at the "front-line"!
Source: http://bx.businessweek.com
Contact Customer Value Foundation to guide you through.
Best Regards,
Gautam Mahajan
President
Customer Value Foundation
Telephone: 011-26831226
email: narender.customervalue@customervaluefoundation.com
website: www.customervaluefoundation.com