Have you ever gone to a frequently visited website only to discover that it’s been “improved?” Tasks that once took one click of a button and a few seconds of your time now require you to navigate through multiple layers of the website and eat up minutes of your time. That’s if you can find what you need at all, or do you have to resort to that ever-enjoyable call to Tech Support where you spent more precious time on hold or having to repeat the same information over and over again as you’re handed off between representatives? That is, if you even have the option of finally talking to a person rather than a chat bot or, worse yet, an email where your questions and complaints go into the great unknown.
This is but one example of companies thinking they know what’s “best” for us. Frequently, their assumptions make our interactions with them even more difficult. Like my pharmacy that so nicely puts my prescriptions on auto-refill, which I didn’t request and didn’t want. Or the trial memberships that automatically sign me up for a year’s subscription unless I remember to cancel them before they are initiated.
Whose benefit?
In each of these cases, the benefit is clearly to the organization and not to the customer. Instead of engendering more loyalty, they often instill more irritation and a desire to do business elsewhere. This is a common phenomenon with “added features” that frequently make products cost more on purchase and more on repair. They also tend to promote planned obsolescence. For many of us, we think about when we were growing up. I don’t think my parents ever had to replace their refrigerator or toaster before I went to college. In 12 years, we’ve had to replace our refrigerator three times because the repairs would have been nearly as costly as a new appliance that would be under a short warranty.
The Baldrige concept of “learning”
I used to think that Baldrige emphasized fact-based evaluation and improvement because of the core value and concept of “Management by Fact,” but I’ve come to believe that it is also an attempt to guide organizations to seek out the Voice of the Customer (VOC) in product and service design. And to continue to do so over the customer life cycle. There’s an excellent tool that helps take VOC data and transform it into design specifications that will meet or exceed customers’ expectations.
https://www.quality.org/sites/default/files/critical_to_quality_trees_0.pdf
Equally relevant to our relationship with employees
Do we consult with our employees before setting policies and procedures that directly impact them? For instance, is it really critical that all employees have the same starting time? Would it be possible to have some employees start their workday at 8:00 a.m. and others begin at 8:30, allowing parents to drop their children off at day care or school? Do employees have a say regarding benefits? Of course, there needs to be a balance between the needs of the workforce and the needs of the business, but we shouldn’t assume that we know what’s best for both.
A look in the mirror
Take a moment to review your most recent results for customer and employee satisfaction. Are there any areas of low scores or outright dissatisfaction that might be the result of making assumptions? When in doubt, ask!
