Episode 34 Continuous Improvement and Customer Satisfaction

The Edges of Lean

Episode: Continuous Improvement and Customer Satisfaction with Sumitra Vig

It’s not just the customer’s satisfaction with an organization but also how the organization rewards and appreciates its employees, that drives organizational success. In this episode Sumitra Vig joins me to talk about how organizations can achieve a goal of satisfying customers by focusing on employees. We talk about her experiences working across countries, learning from diverse cultures and how to create a satisfied customer who keeps coming back again and again.

SUMITRA VIG

Sumitra Vig is a Customer Experience Specialist, and an ASQ Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence. She helps organizations be more effective by increasing the quality of their interactions with employees and customers through focused attention on goals that are tailored specifically to each organization’s unique needs.

CONNECT WITH SUMITRA VIG

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sumitra-vig-34680527

Key Topics in this podcast:

• Sumitra’s journey and her career background
• Adjusting working in different countries and cultures.
• What are Customer Experience Boards?
• Step by Step process to achieve customer satisfaction
• AAA model explained
• How does a customer’s script bring back the voice of customers?
• Gratification and appreciation for employees as important pathway towards customers satisfaction.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Sumitra gained a lot of learnings working across different countries and cultures on how she can apply them for customer satisfaction
• When she moved to Europe, the work-life balance there came as a surprise because it was so different from India and more holistic.
• Citibank implemented methods in newer locations that had been successful in other parts of the world and hence tried and tested.
• In a nutshell, the way to please customers is by taking care of employees first.
• The company uses well researched and refined scripts to reduce mistakes in interactions with customers
• Three ways to measure customer satisfaction is by tracking their satisfaction score, defect rate (problem incidence rate), and problem resolution.
• Employees who work in a culture of fear and stress do not provide the best service to the company’s clients.
• A company's success is tightly coupled with how it treats its own employees, who in turn provide great service to the company’s customers.

Memorable Quotes From Sumitra Vig

• ‘’I think the one important thing is to have fun because when you have fun, you raise your energy and when you raise your energy, you attract a lot of good things”.
  
• ‘’Understand that there will always be hurdles, and every hurdle is a turning point for something good. Go out and have your fun and have a practice to be the best, most authentic person pursuing your dream”.