The survey report on the customer satisfaction and loyalty was revealing indeed. While 93 per cent of the customers claimed to be highly satisfied with the products and services of the company, 2 per cent remained neutral while the balance 5 per cent expressed bitterness.

Interestingly, the company had instituted a practice, called the INCA (INitial CAre), aimed at capturing the overall experiences of the customers during the first 30 days of commencement of a new relationship. A strong and positive correlation emerged between the scores of the INCA survey, satisfied or otherwise, and the scores of the Annual survey.

Data points

When the scores were traced back to the events, action and the specific personnel involved with each of these relationships, it was found that the amateurs received a higher and positive rating than the senior and seasoned ones!

From the standpoint of the company, the amateurs took much longer to negotiate deals and diagnose the defects before fulfilling customer needs. So, when contrasted with their seasoned counterparts, the freshers sold less and attended to fewer customer calls on any given day.

How can the less experienced engineers with lower productivity levels receive a higher satisfaction rating, wondered the company. They validated their impressions with data. For example, while it took the seasoned engineer only 45 minutes to install a new machine and open a new relationship, the amateurs took a total of 85 minutes (see diagram) broken down as: Unpacking 15 minutes; installation 30; loading 5; testing 5; first impressions 5; helpline 10; and personalisation 15.

Upon closer examination, it was found that the problem was not technical, but psychological.

The first meeting serves as an opportunity to set a base level of expectation with the customer. Thereafter, customers evaluate their subsequent experiences against the threshold limits of customer expectations set earlier. So long as the subsequent experiences consistently surpassed their initial expectations set, it evoked a positive surprise and merited their appreciation.

The lesson drawn was that while the company tracked the employees for meeting internally set standards for technical excellence, customers were tracking them for their ability to elevate the standards in their personal interaction.

Obviously first impressions need to be managed with far more care than what was assumed previously.

Second, starting level of expertise was less important than an ability to improve the customer perceptions along the way.

Third, the perceptions of the customers need to be more carefully calibrated against the internal operating metrics of performance. The posers before the directors were how to be responsive to customer perceptions and still cultivate a highly productive workforce and how to bring such insights on a continuing basis into the board room.

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