Home Introduction
When we take action, we do so from our own perception. This is based upon a very different view of the world than that of our customers. We may find, for example, that they are dissatisfied with, or just unmoved by, what we feel to have been an excellent job. Our reputation is damaged and we appear to be out of control. It becomes harder to manage the relationship.
The fact is that our knowledge of the customer is often limited to our experience of them - their requests and our responses. We form a view of how they see the world that is based upon this limited knowledge.
However, to our customers we are only one supplier. Their minds are often elsewhere, concerned with issues that are far more important to them. So what are those issues? How can we obtain a clear picture of them and their individual importance? How can that knowledge enable us to influence the customer relationship?
Things that satisfy people all too soon become neutral or transparent to them. Somehow they are no longer as important as they were and customers pay little attention to them. Measuring customer satisfaction may therefore give a false impression. They are satisfied - but it isn't important. However, what is important to them are the opportunities they are trying to grasp and the problems they are trying to resolve. These provide a clear picture of their perception of the world. Extracting the detail of those opportunities and problems, at a root cause level, and building a picture of their importance, is not as difficult as may be imagined. It is easy to obtain the customer's opinions using the Catalyst process, and remarkably high response levels (80% to 90%) are common.
(By comparison, questionnaires are nothing but trouble - you invent the questions from your own perception of what is important, you can only ask a few questions and you get a low response that is only from the people who like or hate you. Then it is difficult to know what to do with the results!)
For a detailed breakdown of the steps in the Catalyst process, please see the CRM Value Chain, Tools and Outputs & Actions pages. We also encourage you to see what others have said about the process in our Case Studies section. We have facilitated change for many groups, including financial institutions, healthcare organisations and motor companies.
1. CRM Value Chain page2. Tools page - Snowing, CatMat and CatNet
3. Output, Analysis and Actions.