Re: STUDENT REQUEST: Voice of the Customer

[David Kerridge <dfk@mwfree.net>]

>[ Non-subscriber request - please copy bowlinge@msn.com on responses ]
>
>Why is the "Voice of the Customer", internal and external, an 
>important concept?

Who says it is? I remember at one seminar in the UK, a member of the
audience asked "How do we ask the customer what he wants?"
Deming replied: "Customer! What does he know about it?"

We might divide aproaches to quality into three levels:

0     Produce what is easiest to make, and then swindle the customer into
        buying it. Common enough, I am afraid. It is one reason why so much
        is spent on advertising.

1     Find out what will *satisfy* the customer, and make it. This goes
        with ideas like "Zero defects" and "Meet specifications"

2     Try to *delight* the customer, by offering things that the customer
        has not asked for, and did not know could be done.

Many organisations, perhaps most, do not know that anything beyond
levels zero and one exist. But any organisation that relies on these levels
is living on borrowed time. As soon as a competitor discovers the
Deming Philosophy, that organisation is doomed.

"The customer only expects what you and your competitors have
led him to expect. He is a quick learner." (The New Economics pp 7-11)

This doesn't mean that there is no point in listening to customers. But
never believe what they say without careful checking. Over and
over again people who relied on simply asking customers have found
that they say one thing, and do another. And there is a definite risk that
if you ask what the customer wants, you may create dissatisfaction,
when you raise expectations you cannot yet fulfill.

The name W Edwards Deming was famous in consumer research
long before the West had heard of him as a management expert.
Chapter 6 of "Out of the Crisis" is full of advice on consumer research.
His advice is "Study the customer using the product". The supplier is in a
far better position than the customer to know what can be done to
delight the customer.

That way you may see opportunities to innovate and increase the
market. But just doing the same old thing and "meeting specifications"
is, like Zero Defects, "A highway down the tubes".

Best wishes
David
dfk@mwfree.net
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