Every time
you make a move, thousands of nerves as well as your eyes and other
senses provide feedback as to where your body parts are in relation to other
things in the environment. Without continuous feedback, we would be unable
to function.
Evaluation and feedback play an equally vital role for the
organization. It is all too easy for people to do their "jobs" the same
way each day, without knowing much about the end result other than what's on
the paper, the computer screen or the machine. The top executives of the
company get financial reports, but even that is very limited. Cash flow as
captured by double-entry bookkeeping, which was developed over 500 years
ago, is not the most modern or only way to track an organization's success.
A much more comprehensive approach to measurement and feedback is
advocated by the authors of "The Balanced Scorecard." This system seeks to
balance over-reliance on financial data, which they call "driving while
looking in the rear-view mirror," with three other key indicators of success
and progress. They are marketing (such as customer satisfaction
measurement), internal business processes (such as quality control and cycle
time), and learning and growth (employee satisfaction and learning
indicators). From this system and other research, we at Lawrimore developed
the five primary success factors explained on our
Solution Finder page.
Realistically, almost all measurement costs money. And a system
like the Balanced Scorecard is something that typically only a large company
can afford. Some swear by it, others try it and toss it because it does
consume a lot of resources.
However, since marketing often represents a significant external expense,
it is just good business to measure results. At the very least people
who answer the phone should be trained to ask potential customers who call
how they heard about the company, and record that information for management
review.
Customer satisfaction can also be tracked by periodic satisfaction
surveys using mail or the Internet. This is especially useful for
business-to-consumer companies. If you sell business-to-business, your
client may be a busy executive who is not going to take much time to fill
our your survey or anyone else's.
Other forms of measurement and evaluation include using a coupon code or
special offer with advertisements such as direct mail, print or broadcast
media ads. Again whoever answers the phone must at that first moment of
contact capture the source of the person's interest in calling the company.
Evaluation and measurement best begins at the beginning. That is,
we measure where we are now, using market research to evaluate customer and
market perceptions and developing numeric quantifiers of the results (which
is not hard since most of the data has to be converted to numbers to be
tabulated). With that information as a benchmark, and specific goals based
on that starting point, we can then reasonably track our progress moving
forward.
To discuss how evaluation and measurement can benefit your business or
organization, contact Lawrimore today using our
online contact form
or call 704-332-4344.
