Finding customer value
Customers will find value in those products and services that fulfill their needs and solve their problems, quickly, effectively and at a low cost. Many organizations use feedback management programs to develop the products and services that customers will value and purchase. They listen to their customers—needs, ideas for new or improved product features— and incorporate this feedback into the development process. Successful organizations create customer value by engaging and organizing the teams of employees to work collaboratively to design products that deliver what each customer values.
Customer value:Traditional approaches
Companies who follow a more traditional process for product management—hired specialists and experts decide what is best for the customer—often overlook the importance of defining customer value from the actual customer perspective. Some companies don’t think of customers as critical members of their team and mistakenly exclude them from active participation in every phase of the development process. Teams that do try to include the customer often encounter difficulties in the later stages of the development process because they lack the capacity to align their views with customer needs and work consistently to create customer value.
Without a structured process to work collaboratively with the customer, teams become entangled in conflicting viewpoints making consensual decision-making difficult. Work flow is interrupted, valuable time is wasted, delivery cycle time and costs increase while the focus shifts from creating customer value to avoiding disaster—delivering a product that has no perceived customer value and damaging the customer relationship. Rapidly, customer requirements and requests pile up, feedback is ignored and dissatisfaction amongst workers and customers increases. And this can lead to disloyalty and disengagement—an actual loss of customer value.
Customer value starts with a cohesive team
The creation of a strong value chain includes the customer and the team of multi-skilled specialists working together at every phase of the product development process to create the customer value proposition. Teams need to be well structured to communicate effectively with the customer and aligned with the organization’s goals to consistently deliver high customer value and profitability.
Take a look at the way your teams operate and identify improvements to value creation by asking these questions:
• Does your team have a clear management strategy in place to effectively communicate their needs and questions? Do they have a platform from which they can actively engage with other team members, internal clients and customers?
• How about yourself? How do you ensure team members across your organization are part of the value proposition? Do you have the tools to turn certain requirements into tasks and projects? Do you have access to every one’s tasks to ensure accuracy and unison? Are you fully aligned with the right team members to collaborate and get work done efficiently?
Deliver customer value with OneDesk
Equip your teams with the right tool-sets to develop products and services that fulfill customer needs, quickly, effectively and at a low cost. Meet the ever increasing customer demand for value and rise above the competition. Achieve business goals by ensuring teams are a critical part of a larger integrated collaborative system that effectively and efficiently delivers value to customers. The tools allow you to connect organizational activities to customer needs and structure work processes that deliver valued added products or services in the least amount of time and at the lowest cost. The benefits of these tools are twofold: 1) Everyone has a clear sense of their responsibilities and know the responsibilities and tasks of all other team members; and 2) Open work flow facilitates communication and creates a synergy that unifies the team to work cohesively to achieve the common goal.
Deliver better customer value: OneDesks facilitates product development and service delivery by allowing you to collaborate with your customers, partners and employees to organize feedback, requirements and tasks. Sign up for a free account and try today.
