To Big to See : Part Four

Is continuous improvement merely a slogan, or is it a company tenet?”

Do you remember when Ford Motor Company first introduced the Taurus? Do you recall what the advertising slogan was in conjunction with the introduction of that new model? It was “Quality is Job One!” Here is my version of the rest of the story. Over half of the first-generation Ford Taurus cars were sold to fleet companies. They became company cars, rental cars, and every other type of non-owner usage. They were not really regarded as great cars to own and drive every day. As a result, I concluded that the slogan must refer to the quality of the advertising campaign rather than the product advertised.

Continuous improvement is one of the most popular slogans used today. That sounds good. If the channels of communication are only flowing from the top down, without including the bottom up, a slogan is nothing more than a slogan. It is the company staff that meets with the customers that truly understands the customer experience, and they have a lot to share if they have an open communication channel. Furthermore, if they have modern data capture technology alongside their daily interactions, they can serve as a true force for continuous improvement.

What should that technology be? Is it customer surveys bombarding inboxes and text messaging, or even snail mail? It should be well known by now that people distrust and dislike those information capture methods and for good reason. But knowledge of that fact does not seem to be rising to the C-suite in most organizations.

For customer experience data capture technology to be effective, core tenets must be followed.

It must be in context, at the actual point of product or service contact.

it must be anonymous because sharing detailed personal information at random is no longer wise.

It must be quick and convenient and clear of any ambivalence.

It must be formatted to provide real-time feedback that can be observed from any location and on any device.

It must provide guidance to support action and response to resolve problems and make improvements.

That sounds wonderful, but what is that technology, and how is it deployed in a customer traffic environment?

One leading example of this service is Tapyness. It can be used in virtually any environment and context due to its kiosk-based design. Additionally, it can move through crowds or be positioned at specific points of contact such as ingress/egress locations to capture input as people pass through. Tapyness can even take polls on any topic during elections and provide instant feedback to candidates. The list of functions Tapyness can support is virtually endless.

For organizations or entities that want to fully comprehend the true impressions and feelings of those they intend to serve, this technology is essential. That means they must want to know what they don’t know and want to clear all communication channels to allow the flow of information they need. An operational philosophy of continuous improvement should replace archaic labyrinthine obstacles.

The United States recently ranked below the top 10 countries for customer service in a recent report. Is that how we want to be known?

Unless businesses acknowledge and address this unfortunate reality, they will soon see a "For Lease" sign on their buildings.