Complain your way to progress.
Thoughts on how to measure customer satisfaction
I struggle with showing progress in my technology service organization.
I find it difficult to measure and communicate the performance of “business capabilities” with no clear beginning, middle or end. This work isn’t counting widgets on a conveyor belt, though at times I wish it were.
This leadership challenge was in the back of my mind recently as I listened to an excellent podcast featuring Dr. Allen Lim, the founder of Skratch Labs and a well known face in professional cycling.
He described the experience of serving a World Tour cycling team as Director of Performance and Nutrition.
“The guys stopped complaining. [Stomach distress in races] was no longer a discussion…and that freed up our ability to have discussion about [the new] things they were now complaining about! You move forward.”
Interesting point. Dr. Lim. Can the absence of frustration be used as a metric for progress? 🤔
This idea of monitoring the evolution of customer complaints is very intriguing to me. One might infer that while it can hard to measure progress, it’s not that hard to hear what people are frustrated about. People like to be heard
So, how might one approach this?
Listening — How are you listening? Who are you listening to? How often do you ask? How do you tune into quiet voices and normalize the loud ones?
Transcription and Interpretation — What are we really saying? What are the themes? It’s never about what it’s a about, so who’s keeping score?
Respond — Map these new inputs to your outputs. Make sure your problem solving process is informed by the voice of the customer. This becomes more difficult the further away the “listener” is from the “problem solver”.
Close the loop — Did we actually solve it? Has the tone changed? Are we hearing new complaints or did our solution just miss the mark?
There’s promise here, but I can anticipate some challenges. Culturally, complaining is cancerous. Dwelling on frustrations and vocal dissatisfaction is a great way to kill positivity and team morale.
We could reframe “complaints” in this model to “constructive feedback”, but sometimes it’s not. Service can be messy. A pissed off customer won’t be having their best day. As a service organization, you must be prepared to receive feedback in whatever form it is offered and make it productive.
After all, in service, it’s not about you.