Baldrige Criteria

3 Customer Focus (85 pts.) The Customer Focus Category examines HOW your organization engages its CUSTOMERS for long-term marketplace success. This ENGAGEMENT strategy includes HOW your organization builds a CUSTOMER-focused culture. Also examined is HOW your organization listens to the VOICE OF ITS CUSTOMERS and uses this information to improve and identify opportunities for innovation.

Item 3.1 - Customer Engagement (40 pts.)                                                                                                                                                      Process

HOW do you ENGAGE CUSTOMERS to serve their needs and build relationships?

Describe HOW your organization determines product offerings and mechanisms to support CUSTOMERS' use of your products. Describe also HOW your organization builds a CUSTOMER-focused culture. Within your response, include answers to the following questions: 3.1a. Product Offerings and CUSTOMER Support (1)   HOW do you identify and innovate product offerings to meet the requirements and exceed the expectations of your CUSTOMER groups and market SEGMENTS        (identified in your ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE)? HOW do you identify and innovate product offerings to attract new CUSTOMERS and provide opportunities for expanding relationships with existing CUSTOMERS, as appropriate? (2)   HOW do you determine your KEY mechanisms to support use of your products and enable CUSTOMERS to seek information and conduct their business with you? What are your KEY means of CUSTOMER support, including your KEY communication mechanisms? HOW do they vary for different CUSTOMERS, CUSTOMER groups, or market SEGMENTS? HOW do you determine your CUSTOMERS' KEY support requirements? HOW do you ensure that CUSTOMER support requirements are DEPLOYED to all people and PROCESSES involved in CUSTOMER support? (3)   HOW do you keep your APPROACHES for identifying and innovating product offerings and for providing CUSTOMER support current with business needs and directions? 3.1b. Building a Customer Culture (1)   HOW do you create an organizational culture that ensures a consistently positive CUSTOMER experience and contributes to CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT? HOW do your WORKFORCE PERFORMANCE management system and your WORKFORCE and leader development systems reinforce this culture? (2)   HOW do you build and manage relationships with CUSTOMERS to ·        acquire new CUSTOMERS; ·        meet their requirements and exceed their expectations in each stage of the CUSTOMER life cycle; and ·        increase their ENGAGEMENT with you? (3)   HOW do you keep your APPROACHES for creating a CUSTOMER-focused culture and building CUSTOMER relationships current with business needs and directions?

Notes: N1. “Customer engagement” refers to your customers’ investment in your brand and product offerings. Characteristics of engagement include customer retention and loyalty, customers’ willingness to make an effort to do business—and to increase business—with your organization, and customers’ willingness to actively advocate for and recommend your brand and product offerings. N2. “Product offerings” and “products” refer to the goods and services that you offer in the marketplace. Product offerings (3.1a[1]) should consider all the important characteristics of products and services and their performance throughout their full life cycle and the full “consumption chain.” The focus should be on features that affect customer preference and loyalty—for example, those features that differentiate your products from competing offerings or other organizations’ services. Those features might include price, reliability, value, delivery, timeliness, ease of use, requirements for the use and disposal of hazardous materials, customer or technical support, and the sales relationship. Key product features also might take into account how transactions occur and factors such as customer data privacy and security. Your results on performance relative to key product features should be reported in Item 7.1, and those concerning customer perceptions and actions (outcomes) should be reported in Item 7.2. N3. The goal of customer support (3.1a[2]) is to make your organization easy to do business with and responsive to your customers’ expectations. N4. CUSTOMER relationship building (3.1b[2]) might include the development of PARTNERSHIPS or alliances with CUSTOMERS.   N5. The customer life cycle (3.1b[2]) begins in the pre-sale period and should include all stages of your involvement with the customer. This might include relationship building, the active business relationship, and an exit strategy, as appropriate. N6. For additional considerations on products, CUSTOMER, and the business of nonprofit organizations, see Item P.1, Notes 1 and 7, and Item P.2, Note 5.

For additional description of this Item, see 3.1 Customer Engagement Description.