Adding Value to the Customer

Hello George, A few of my thoughts on the topic-

Q 1 and 2

1. Creating value is enabling the customer to succeed in customer's marketplace or helping the customer in whatever manner, to succeed in customer’s business mission.

What is customer? -While traditional definition of seller and customer is well known, internal customers are equally important. Unlike real marketplace, where competition could be fierce, at times within companies, there are chances of monopolies within inter departmental interactions. All departments serving only internal (within the same company) customers, need to do their best of adding value.The internal customers have no option to go somewhere else for poor service from other department(s).

Q 2 and 3

A value can be created for customer in many ways

A. As straightforward as delivering exactly what was contracted with customer.

B. Sharing best practices and lessons learned with customers through online website blogs, whitepapers, seminars for customers on best use of recently launched products / services or practices.

C. In the 21st century, going green (creating environment friendly products/ services/processes) has also assumed importance in creating indirect but immense value for customer.

D. In the 21st century, with the advent of social media, companies are creating value by even involving customers in all stages of product / service creation (right from design to after sales service). Involving customer voice is a modern form of creating value for customer.

E. Increasing the ease of doing business -newer ways of distributing the product, keeping business open for extended hours on weekends, if it benefits the customer ( and the seller ) are some other methods of creating value for customer.

Q4.

At times, giving freebies or giving discounts may not count as creating true value for customer.

Q 5.

Part of my response to Q 3 is based on my real life experiences.

I hope, I am able to add some perspective. All the very best.

Hi George,

First a bit of background. I have developed, managed and reported the benefits for 1. bringing services online for Queensland Government and 2. implementing the digital Government Wireless Network for Queensland Government.

For the online services, this has entailed converting over 1200 level 1 services to be available online and currently over 360 level 2 services online for all 26 departments. Level 1 services are access to pages/documents and simple transactions. Level 2 services are transactional and form completion for all departments and level 3 services are the complex transactions, forms and cross-department information and transactions.

As more and more people are doing business online there is a need to have the Government services also available online. The purpose was to have a one stop shop for any service you want to complete so that the look and feel was consistent across all agencies. The initial survey result was that the Queensland public did not care which department offered which service they just wanted to get to where they wanted without government speak and doing the dance of a thousand clicks and curses.

In both programs of work there were two sets of customers, the Queensland Public and the Government staff who dealt with the Queensland public.

One of the biggest failings of all projects, programs, portfolios, is the misunderstanding of the customer requirements or needs because 1. They don’t know who their customer really is, 2. Not all customers are the same, 3. Not one size fits all, 4. Customers do not speak your language. (Governmentese, Accountantese, Lawyerese etc)

Firstly define what it is you are aiming to achieve. Map the customer journey and define these as benefits. I find 4 high level benefits is a good number. eg
Improved customer service staff satisfaction
Improved Customer Experience
Reduced cost to serve
Increased productivity

From defining what your customer needs, KPI’s can be developed to add value to your customer. Many of the project managers I have dealt with often relate their outcomes, benefits, objectives etc to financial benefits for improving the bottom line of the business. When dealing with adding value to customers or customer focused products or services the value may not be one that can be measured in $. The benefit of retaining the customer by providing a better service or product indirectly impacts the bottom line.

Putting it simply, adding value to the customer or delivering what the customer wants is not what you have heard the customer wants/needs but what the customer perceives to be value to them. You can ask as many customers as you like what they want or need and then deliver it, But unless they perceive there to be value it for them you have not added value.