Focus group research is a qualitative research method designed to gather in-depth thoughts from a small discussion group of people selected from a particular segment of the population. Focus group research is properly used as a starting point in a greater research project, such as a large scale mailed survey. In this white paper, the process of focus group research is discussed.

This month's white paper, How To Use Focus Groups As A Starting Point For Market Research gives you examples of the processes and pitfalls, drawn from the substantial experiences of the authors.

About once a year we see a commercial we really like. Criteria for us is entertainment and effective message delivery. In today's world if you don't entertain you may never get the chance to deliver your message. But, if you only entertain and don't deliver a message, you'd better get paid for producing entertainment.

Anyway, we ran across this ad and loved it. We do notice something about many of the ads we offer to you ... they are not U.S. ads. Maybe the folks on Madison Avenue need to look overseas for better advertising.

Anyway, for your entertainment and education we offer this ad. Use the link below to watch it on your computer screen.

As long time readers know we are strong believers in the application of existing, proven process management principles to customer-facing processes. One of those principles is Lean Thinking. (You can read for the first time, or re-read our white paper Lean Thinking Applied to Marketing/Sales Process to learn more.)

One of the "fathers" of Lean Thinking is James Womack. Writing last year in Fast Company he took the customer service process to task. Many of us have become increasingly frustrated by the "off-shoring" of customer service and believe that this "off-shoring" is the root cause problem of deteriorating customer service levels. That is not true. Off-shoring can, many times, lead to improved service quality. And it did initially in customer service. What changed?

Two things:

1. The best suppliers became "sold out" leaving lower quality suppliers to take the remaining business
2. The incentive system to compensate customer service suppliers changed

While the first issue is clearly a problem, it is the second one that is the root cause problem.

The vendors starting paying their out-sourced call centers a flat rate per call handled. This resulted in two problems:

1. The call center person needed to get off the phone quickly, and
2. Even more importantly, the call center vendor had NO incentive to reduce the number of calls they received.

As you might expect, the quality of the calls got worse and the number of calls per product sold did not change (or increased).

Fujitsu Services in Europe, being a Lean Thinker, decided to make a proposition to their customers:

• Don't pay us per call handled, but rather pay us to help you decrease the number of calls per units sold.

Fujitsu's idea was to help eliminate the need for service, which is the ultimate in customer service.

Results:

1. First time new problem calls dropped dramatically as Fujitsu's customers learned to correct root causes of customer frustration
2. Fujitsu has a lower turn-over rate of call center people as their reps were paid to think, not read a script
3. Fujitsu's business increased and its customers' costs were reduced
4. As an added bonus, Fujitsu's people were able to find new features and product ideas in their conversations with people that helped Fujitsu's customers learn things that would help them create better future products.

Lean is about removing costs that don't add value. Frustrated customers are a cost that in fact adds negative value.

email: mgooze@customermfg.com

phone: 408.987.0140

web: http://www.customermanufacturing.com