Agile Software Development: A local example of Customer Intimacy Strategy

You all know Mycampus.pk. That's the example i want to quote. Their customer-intimacy (C.I.) goes into the very process project development they do for their customers, spread all across the globe. Here's is what mr. Abidoon Nadeem has to say about their agile software methodology, which illustrate C.I. strategy:

"Agile software development methodology is a movement that was started I think 20 years ago against the traditional software development which really suite the current kind of development that people do today. I’d say that ASD is much more natural, it comes much more naturally. It’s a lot more cost effective and time effective. In ASD you don’t lock the scope; you assume … the point is that customer is not perfect. The spec he gave you initially is going to change. When he actually uses, that is very different from everything that he had in his head. You need to give him room and accommodate the changes. ASD let’s you don’t do that. It doesn’t lock for the entire process. It does lock however for 10-11 days. Locking is important because without it developers can’t work. Development is kind of a map. If you play with the variables, everything is going to change. You’ve to lock to ensure that certain set of features is done in a certain amount of time. You start, take initial spec, do iterations, and then you show it to the customer. The customer is asked to use it, they give you feedback, and then you put it in the next iterations. Lock for 10-11 days and then show it to the customer. The customer feels that you’re working on what he gave you [...]. It is like a building being construction which they can actually see the construction happening, where they can make changes.

ASD ensures quality: they make you test the application a lot. Even while you’re developing you’re testing. Then in ASD is this concept of “Pair Programming” in which 2 persons sit on 1 computer. One person is driver and the other is programmer/coder. When they work together they can code much better and much faster. It seems as if it’s a very expensive thing […]. But it ends up saving you time and money. And. The bugs you’ve are not silly bugs. The bugs, scenarios are really sophisticated. Such a scenario may never occur 95% of times. It basically turns developers into testers."

Customer relationship groups

There are 4-customer relationship group:

1) Butterflies: are profitable but not loyal example is stock market investors.

2) True friends: are both profitable and loyal.

3) Strangers: have low profitability and are not loyal.

4) Barnacles: are highly loyal but not very profitable example are smaller bank customers.

From all four, barnacles are the most problematic because they are not profitable and are long-term customers, which do not generate enough returns to cover the costs.

(if image is not clear please click on it)

Ensuring QCD For Customer Satisfaction

Image source: http://www.power9.net/images/customersatisfaction.jpg
Well, as I mentioned in my previous post we can't satisfy our customers merely by dealing with them politely, other steps are damn-important too, and here is an excellent image that summarizes all the factors that are important for customer satisfaction and it is easy to learn : QCD

Quality, that will differentiate and uplift our product
Cost, through which we should ensure to deliver superior value at every unit our customers pay
and
Delivery, which includes all the remaining factors, our quick response, customer-dealing, additional services and volume production

So all we have to do to tackle the critical aspect of customer satisfaction is to keep this QCD in mind ! Simple

Steps For Customer Satisfaction

Image source:
www.elmer.co.za/customer-satisfaction
Heyy ppl, here are seven excellent steps to yield customer satisfaction

1. Encourage face-to-face dealings
2. Respond to messages promptly and keep your clients informed
3. Be Friendly and Approachable
4. Have a clearly-defined Customer Service Policy
5. Attention to detail
6. Anticipate your client's needs and go out of your way to help them
7. Honor your promises

Source: http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/satisfaction-7-steps#


I felt like sharing these steps with you guys, since I think this stuff's very useful for enhanced customer satisfaction. And of course enhancing customer-relationship is what marketing is all about.

Plus, I would like to add that besides these steps for dealing with customers, you should ensure maximum quality so that your customers don't assess you to be displaying fake sugar-coated behavior only to attract them.

How to handle customer complaints?

Customer complaints, whether coming from profitable or unprofitable customers, is something universal to all consumer businesses, which can concern any department of a firm. The better replacement for customer complaints is customer feedback, which no sane organization can ignore, in fact all organizations depend upon it to judge their own performance and to improve, simple as truth. Handling complains can become very unprofitable, and the art of handling the complains and unprofitably that comes along it is one of the basics of marketing know-how. One of world's top marketers, John Quelch, offers some guidelines "for expediting the complaint process and keeping customers happy":

• "Understand the full context. Try to understand as much as you can about the complaint. The more information you have, the easier it is to determine the root of the dissatisfaction.
• Propose a resolution. Know what would make the situation better for your customer and propose ways you can solve the problem.
• Show respect. Complaining customers are often upset. Train employees receiving complaints to be empathetic and to reframe the harsh criticism they may receive into constructive feedback."*

From this guidelines it's clear that no matter if the customer burst with anger, the employee(r) should return the rudeness not with rudeness but with smile and respect. I have seen this many times when an angry customer or person would talk rudely to my father, and how he won their hearts, forming deep, enduring relations with them. It all happens in a spur of a moment, and those few seconds are crucial. When we keep in our sub-conscious mind that context needs to be understood at all costs, our reactions would be better, making us more and more empathetic towards our customers.

(* From Management Tip of the day, DECEMBER 2, 2009.)