The Product
The Customer's Mind (TCM) is a relationship management tool that measures, monitors, and communicates with your customers. TCM reaches out and communicates with them on a regular basis, soliciting feedback that is instantaneously displayed in our real-time report writer.
This provides companies with a ongoing customer-centric perspective of business operations.
Imagine... instant clarity on where to focus your resources that is validated by the customers.
Centred on the Expectation Gap Index (EGI) methodology, you can think of TCM as your 'Outside-In' Quality System where its structure will allow you to validate that your current internal quality initiatives are actually creating customer value.
Your internal measurements may be indicating quality but your customer's perceptions are different.
The Customer's Mind measures, monitors and communicates while is helps you close the gaps between what is wanted and what is.
The Science
The underlying 'Science' behind the Expectation Gap Index has been proven for over 25 years. The program is structured three categories of service dimension; Core Services, Value Add and Innovation. Each are critically important and each have a number of 'touch points within". For example 'Delivery' is an example of a Core Service Dimension and 'On Time Delivery' is a Core Touch Point within the dimension while 'Sales Relationship' is a Value Add Dimension and 'High Product Knowledge' is a dimension within.
We consider each customer and each customer segment (and all of the many sub segments) as unique and the automated online reporting system allows you to easily understand and compare each in an almost ulimited number of ways.
In addition, we facilitate the Employee Customer Gap Analysis which has the employees answer questions as if they were a customer so that you understand how the employees value customer related activities and how they view performance and the gap between the two.
The benchmark starts the process and the FeedFORWARD system takes prioritized information and feeds it back to employees and/or customers to gain greater clarity and engage them in the process of problem solving or innovation.
Certification
High performance operations can achieve special certification with The Customer's Mind® Seal of Excellence!
This designation shows the commitment to understanding and meeting the needs of customers.
And ... unlike other Quality Awards programs you don't have to be a customer of ours to be certified.
Customer Friendly Certification
Applications
Your Outside -> In Quality System
Rationale: Most organizations today have a quaility system in place and most organizations ask their customers for feedback ... yet very few consider the two as an interrelated critical strategy.
The Customer's Mind System brings the two together in a meaningful way so that you can have an intimate understanding of your customers, what they want and how well you are serving their needs in addition to having a deep understanding of how your internal process are (or are not) translating to customer value.
Who It’s For: Any forward thinking organization that seeks to provide an exceptional experience to all customer segments in a systematic and very efficent way.
What It Does: The Customer's Mind is a relationship management solution that measures, monitors and communicates with the customers that is instantaneously displayed online in our real-time report writer. This provides companies with a customer-centric perspective of business operations. The system helps you understand how aligned you are with customer expectations in three key areas ... your core services such as on time delivery and sending an accurate invoice ... to your value add services which the ones that make you different and include such items as relationships and technical support ... to your innovation which cleary can set you apart from your competitors.
In addition, we measure loyalty factors, what a great customer experience looks like, as well as many other factors.
All information is available in real time through our secure online reporting system which is easy to use and intuitive.
Employee Customer Gap Analysis
A little known key area of engagment deals with the employees confidence in the organization supporting the customer experience and the employee’s efforts in delivering the customer experience.
To do this, the organization must understand the gaps between employee perceptions and those of the customers by asking employees to respond to a series of customer questions around priorities and performance “as if” they were a customer.
The employee feedback is then cross-referenced with the customers’ feedback.
This encourages a team approach to improvement and does not contribute to traditional “walls” that exist between management and employees. Customer and employee feedback is non-debatable in nature and does not breed resistance.
Mergers & Aquisitions.
Rationale: Research indicates that the majority of mergers and acquisitions do not achieve their desired goals as a result of difficulties in dealing with complex customer relationships, financial due dilligence that does not consider customer relationships and cultural differeces with the organizaiton. In order to minimize potential integration issues and strengthen position during the valuation process, organizations must focus on understanding customer and employee perceptions, as well as the nature of the relationships between the employees and the customers.
Who It’s For: Any organization that is looking to buy, sell or merge an operation.
What It Does: theMindSuite due diligence solution helps any business manage its risks both, before an acquisition or after the sale during integration. Traditional ‘due diligence’ procedures tend to focus on the infrastructure, financial statements, product overlap, complimentary services, and resource redundancies. While any acquisition committee recognizes the importance of a strong employee team and loyal customer base, the lack of objective tools to provide measurable indices in these areas has been absent… until now! TMS Due Diligence provides excpetional customer insights, employee relationship informaton and internal culture.
Combining and analyzing the perceptions of these key stakeholders better positions the newly formed organization to meet and exceed customer expectations.
Before An Acquisition: Quantify Goodwill: Puts a measurement to actual ‘goodwill’, gain insights into the operations of a business, assess the risks and whether to proceed with the merger/acquisition, measure the value at which a transaction should be undertaken, determine the warranties and indemnities that should be obtained, accurate evaluation and measurement of customer and employee relationships can increase or decrease the value of the business.
After An Acquisition: Integrate: Ensure that the strengths of divisions/operations are properly identified, gain a solid understanding of customer and employee priorities, customer centric information for integration planning & strategic implementation, significantly higher levels of customer and employee retention, a solid understanding of customer, employee, and organizational priorities, identification of potential integration problems to help ensure a smooth transition, develop a true, measurable understanding of the company’s performance against industry standards and customer expectations
Revenue Forecasting
This particular service gains critical spending information from the customer in areas such as share of spend with the organization, future intents on share of spend and spending patterns over a period of time. When this feedback is cross referenced against actual spend, the accuracy for revenue forecasting is exceptional.
In addition, in most cases the client releases their individual data and then the sales team can focus on gaining a greater share of spend by addressing outstanding competitive disadvantage issues (should they occur) and save business if there are significant service or communication issues.
I Would Like More Information About The Customer's Mind ..
Rationale: While large scale studies that ask customers for their perceptions on an organizations performance are critical .... they DO NOT complete the picture.
A perception may be tied to past experiences or brand association and not be specific to current quality levels. By asking the stakeholder to evaluate their experience soon after or during the interaction, we are able to capture a response that is tied to the actual experience and along with the perception data, tactically use the information to manage experiences.
Who It’s For: Any organization that has direct interaction with customers and would like to understand the quality of those particular individuals immediately following the interaction.
What It Does: The Customer's Mind Point of Contact (POC) Monitoring system gains feedback from your customers after (or during) a specific contact (i.e. customer service call, sales call, repair call, etc.). This allows for ongoing monitoring of service quality by region, specific account, field representative, type of incident, or any other segmentation required. This information is consolidated and automatically directed into our real-time, online report writers, which allows you to effectively monitor performance, and allocate resources through a simple web-interface in REAL-TIME, anytime… from anywhere in the world.
In addition, there is an acceleration component that will send a communication to the appropriate person when the customer says that the situation is not resolved (or the ticket is not closed even though it was marked that way) which allows for immediate action.
External ISO & Quality System Metrics
Who It's For: Any organization that has a quality system including ISO and seeks to implement a cost effective solution for external validation for the internal measurements. In other words is what you are doing actually creating value.
What It Does: The Customer's Mind External ISO Metrics solution is an ongoing, cost-effective program that captures and documents feedback directly from customers and/or suppliers. It is quick, easy, and ideal for helping organizations to meet and exceed the ISOseries of quality management system standards. The revised standards outline a framework for integrating customer focus throughout the organization.
The standards also affirm the importance of meeting the requirements of customers, employees, and suppliers by consistently measuring performance metrics with each stakeholder group. The Voice of The Customer External ISO Metrics allows the organization to cross-reference performance metrics with satisfaction measurements, which ultimately highlights any gaps in consistency.
Strategic Customer Integration Plan (SCIP)
The Strategic Customer Integration Plan (SCIP) is a by-product of The Customer's Mind. SCIP allows your team to gain a detailed understanding of your key objectives. Throughout a series of “round-table” discussions, the VOC Team will gain an understanding of your desired business results. The SCIP process assists you in truly understanding what is involved in the development of your Customer's Mind initiative, which is critical to avoiding project obstacles such as, scope-creep, over-allocation of internal resources, etc.
The resulting SCIP document is also used to supplement the organizational business plan, marketing plans, and to facilitate the due diligence process for internally raising additional financing or capital to fund the initiative. The SCIP process was designed to enable your team to prepare a detailed project plan, which outlines the key responsibilities, timelines, and milestones for all members of the Customer Analytics initiative.
The documented results and conclusions of the discovery process include a written document that defines, to all parties involved, the scope of the project and assigns completion dates to specific milestones. The SCIP document is critical to ensuring the clarity of the roles and responsibilities for all parties involved in the initiative. By having a well organized audit of the organization’s objectives and goals, the VOC Team is able to provide an accurate and fixed investment quotation.
Sales Performance Optimization
TCM Sales Relationship Assessment is a tool that helps the business better understand the nature of the relationship between the customer and the organization’s sales representatives. If the salespeople aren’t performing or aren't aligned, then the organization isn’t building revenues, which means potential customers ARE NOT BUYING.
TCM Sales Relationship Assessment addresses these issues by examining the various dimensions and interactions within the sales relationship. Our survey process and methodology can help you discover what areas are working and those which need help, what problems exist and why, and what can be done to improve the performance.
Sales Performance Optimization: is a sales effectiveness tool that helps the representative increase and speed up their closing ratio because it measures the quality of the solution and the sales performance against the prospect's perceptions of what is most important before and after meetings and sales transactions. Pre-sales – Web based prior to sales call Post presentation – how effective was presentation. Post proposal – what was the quality of the interaction(s).
Pre-Call Analysis: By taking the guesswork out of the sales process, the salesperson has the opportunity to shorten the sales cycle with laser-focused solutions and presentations. This eliminates the need to “guesstimate” in preparation for those extremely important first sales calls. Instead, the rep can go directly to the source and ask the prospect what they’re interested in, what they expect, and what their key objectives are BEFORE the actual meeting. Every piece of information received from the prospect prior to the meeting is absolutely critical to achieving the objectives of both the sales rep and the prospect.
Post Call Analysis: Gain feedback in a non-intrusive manner. At this point, the meeting (or series of) has already taken place and it’s time for next-steps. The 3rd party approach to asking questions and receiving feedback is the easiest way to get open, honest information about the prospect’s perceptions of the meeting overall. This extremely important ‘deal closing’ information is exactly what’s needed to get the desired answer when the time comes to ask for the business.
