Digitizing Customer Data

A large commercial firm realized that its information on specific customers was scattered in different departments and different areas. The CEO insisted that all customer data was to be digitized and a major project began. The team was led by a team leader who was familiar with the Kaizen process and tools. The leader was not content to just do a technical conversion of data to a digital format. He challenged the team to look at each process that gathered information on the customers and or how the customers communicated to the company.

An As IS process map was done for each process where the customer “touched” the company. Areas such as customer complaints, sales history, returns etc. were meticulously mapped and the delays identified. The team leader insisted that all the processes be streamlined via using Kaizen tools first, and a new To Be was created for all the touch points. The leader also insisted that customer service personnel participate in the process mapping and have access to all the touch points of a particular customer in real time when they contacted customer service.

When the new digitized data was available and customer service representatives had access to all the data, customer satisfaction surveys showed a very significant increase in customer satisfaction.