Put six sigma to work in business to business sales. That’s the message in this great article on using six sigma enterprise dashboard metrics to uncover the best ways to build, maintain and grow relationships with customers.
Here are some great quotes and diagrams from the article:
Focus on What Customers Value in the Buying Process
Six Sigma can have a direct impact on sales results if a company is disciplined in keeping the focus on what customers value in the buying process. This is not about product attributes, customer service or sales support – although data will probably be uncovered that will lead to improvement opportunities in these and other areas. What it is about is the needs of buyers when making a major purchase decision.
Here is how the standard Six Sigma DMAIC roadmap can be used to strengthen the relationships between salespeople and customers.
Define: What Does Sales Expect to Gain?
The challenge in the Define phase is to convince the sales organization that this is a way for them to improve their relationships with key customers and prospects by gathering unique insights into how buying decisions are made.
Measure: A Loyalty Baseline
Gathering data in a way that allows the team to draw conclusions and act on them is critical. Conducting short interviews with buyers and prospects is a good way to understand their critical-to-quality attributes (CTQs) relative to the buying process. This data can be collected fairly quickly but does require up-front planning and expertise in survey design. Many companies use an objective third party to conduct the interviews. Customer loyalty extends beyond satisfaction, and directly impacts business results. The customer who values the product or service will continue to buy and will promote it to others.
Analyze: What Do Customers Value?
Analyzing qualitative data is different from reviewing Pareto charts, statistical print-outs and customer survey results. Time should be allowed for the project team to absorb the data and engage in testing different hypotheses. There are three steps in analyzing the data.
Identify key themes. Engage a team of salespeople and other stakeholders in reviewing the feedback from the interviews. Make it easier for them to interpret the findings by organizing it around key themes and contrasting the responses from customers to those of salespeople. Be sure to support the key themes with specific examples so the flavor of the comments are retained and the findings resonate with members of the sales team. The graphs in Figure 2 illustrate how one company used interviews with customers and sales representatives and a short survey to identify opportunities for improvement and measure alignment.
Improve: How Should the Company Sell Differently?
Once it has determined how salespeople deliver value to customers, the project team can develop a focused action plan. Common actions include:
- Changes in pricing strategy: A uniform pricing strategy may not meet the needs of all customers.
- More involvement in product delivery: Salespeople may need to work actively to stay close to the customer once the deal has been closed.
- Training to improve consulting skills: Need may be found for training/development of the sales force.
- Reorganization of the sales function: Internal barriers need to be removed so that the company can more effectively serve customers.
- Cross-functional process reengineering: Customers may be frustrated by the way in which the company integrates sales/credit/distribution, etc.
- Sales rewards/incentives: The company may need to change its sales incentive scheme to promote strong relationships.
- Revised value proposition: Customers can recommend fundamental changes in how the company positions and markets its product.
- Specific actions to support one major customer: There may be specific issues with one large customer that merit deeper investigation and action planning.
Control: Measuring to Sustain Improvements
Improve is the exhilarating phase – changes are implemented and results begin to be seen. To sustain the momentum, there needs to be a process in place to capture and track data on an ongoing basis. “You need to track data from lead generation to close,” said GE’s Moreland. That can mean going beyond the standard sales measures that capture activity but do not necessarily link to revenue growth. Some sample measures are listed in Table 2.
A simple dashboard can keep the CTQ’s in front of both company leaders and members of the sales force. These key measures should be communicated regularly on a quarterly or monthly basis.
Be sure to read this great article on six sigma sales metrics for enterprise dashboards.
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. I’ll be checking it out, but it looks like a real practioner’s read. The author proposes a methodology for increasing value called the Value Performance Framework. There is a companion CD with Excel models and sample performance dashboards.>>>>
