Balanced Score Card - Customer Perspective
The customer perspective focuses on the people who actually patronize your business. These are the folks that buy your products. Customer satisfaction is key, especially in world where your business can quickly be tainted by a bad review. Some of the questions you may ask yourself to gauge satisfaction is: Are you getting new business? Are you keeping your current customers happy and how is your company viewed in comparison to others in your industry.
Do you remember the chaos around the Popeyes vs. the Chick fil A chicken sandwich. Think about the way customers viewed each of these chains during this fiasco. The on-going rave about which chicken sandwich was better was interesting and it made for good laughs but it wasn’t enough to make customers forget about the less than desirable customer service experience from one of those I just mentioned.
Customer satisfaction or the lack thereof can drastically impact your organization's bottom line. One of the ways you can look through the customer's perspective is to first figure out what it is they want from you. Why are they deciding to do business with you? I always tell my students that many people will go and sit behind 50 cars in the chick fil a drive through because of the service, the accuracy and the efficiency. They know that this place will not charge you for an extra dipping sauce and it’s very unlikely that they get your order wrong.
The other way to monitor the customer perspective is to not only gather their feedback but monitor their actions. Many customers may tell you that they are pleased with service through a survey but are they returning to do business with you? Do you have a process to follow up and really gather the feedback that will ignite you into action?
The customer perspective is key in getting a balanced view of your organization's health. Be sure to tune back in next week when we talk about the other perspectives of the balanced scorecard.
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Is this the first time we’ve met? If so, I’m Cari Hawthorne and I love helping HR professionals accelerate their careers.