Principal Keyword: Six Sigma
Productivity of sales or marketing teams remains a critical component for the businesses to generate returns on the physical capital they deploy. Six Sigma quality implementation offers a helping hand to achieve this. It offers a structured approach to build the relationship with the customers. By understanding and appreciating their wants, needs and convert them into profitable outcomes. Six Sigma defines as an evidence-based data-driven targeted method to offer superior services to customers in a disciplined manner.
At the heart of any business operations is adding value to the customers. Six Sigma by forming as a bridge between the marketing/sales team and quality improvement professionals facilitates the exploration of the voice of the customer, (VOC) and the voice of the business, (VOC). Doing so eliminates the subjective biases that the sales/marketing teams might have formed out of intuitions and replaces them with scientific analysis of data.
Objectives
The VOC process exploited to achieve the following specific objectives:
- Influence the customers in a manner that would motivate them. To go in for the products and services offered by your business in preference to the competitors
- Eliminate the randomness in marketing and replace it with the application of predictable metrics
- Focus your activities to meet the needs of the customers that would bring value to them
- Utilization of the scarce resources to tap the greatest opportunities that would enable you to retain a competitive edge.
Benefits
- By applying robust processes as management by fact, customer product linked financial packages, decision making streamlined objectively. This reduces the uncertainty inherent in marketing. By bringing about a robust approach through a mechanism of creative and dynamic discipline.
- It makes it possible to use several strategic marketing techniques. Some of them are IDEA, (identity, Define, Evaluate and Activate), UAPL, (Understand, Analyse, Plan and Launch), LMAD, (Launch, Manage, Adapt and Discontinue). Each of these techniques enables by tools, methods. And best practices that offer scope to the marketing/sales teams to gather appropriate data, analyze it, and complete tasks in distinct phases. Moreover, being product/service specific, these serve as valuable tools for the commercialization of the projects.
Measures and categories
Putting in place authentic data forms the cornerstone to successful outcomes. It is, therefore, necessary to determine the nature of data that exists or that needs to be collected. Such data as the customers’ purchasing history, preferences, the results of the marketing programs in terms of acquisition of the customers, their lifetime value, (LTV), loyalty. And the costs that have been incurred facilitate the tying up of marketing metrics to business outcomes. This instills a sense of purpose into the marketing/sales team to transform from mere transactions to strategic contributions.
The Six Sigma Institute, (https://www.sixsigma-institute.org/Six_Sigma_DMAIC_Process_Define_Phase_Capturing_Voice_Of_Customer_VOC.php) categorizes VoC in to:
- Voice of Associate
Which meant the feedback that an organization gets from their employees.
- Voice of Investors
Relates to the feedback that comes from the management and stakeholders.
- Voice of the Customers
Refers to the feedback obtained from the end-users.
- Voice of Process
Denotes quantifiable feedback that is got from measuring Critical to Process, (CTP) and Critical to Quality, (CTQ)
Acknowledgment: Six Sigma – Voice of AICP (Associate, Customer, Investor, and Process)/ https://www.sixsigma-institute.org/Six_Sigma_DMAIC_Process_Define_Phase_Capturing_Voice_Of_Customer_VOC.php
The takeaway of this article is that for any business to succeed, customers’ voices (VoC) translate into action. This makes it possible for Six Sigma methods and to determine how improvements in productivity, performances, and processes bought about. Although Six Sigma is not seen as everybody’s cup of tea. Therefore, it does not align well with traditional management practices. And yet it is something that ought to be part and parcel of your business. For this reason, eventually, its gains are far more substantial than the limitations.
Other Keywords:
Customer Experience, Customer Support, Feedback Gauge Diagram Marketing, Marketing Model, Six Sigma, Voice of the Customer Strategy
