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The Problem
A new subgroup within the Sales Department of a mid-sized Company had been formed to partner with a new market of Vendors who resell the
Company software to the Vendors' customers. The Vendors are large with huge customer bases, and significantly more software was being sold
through these partnerships. Customers, however, were unhappy with their overall experience, and the customer satisfaction level plummeted to
5%.

Contributing Factors
Customer Service Personnel - The new partnerships, although good for revenue generation, required support from the other departments of the
company. Customer Service employees did not understand the new requirements for supporting customers who were now using software that
had been integrated through one of these new vendor partnerships. Customer Service had not been given the information necessary to help
customers with the new configuration, and they grew uneasy and discontent. Since Customer Service leadership had not been involved in
day-to-day Customer Service issues, but instead had been heavily involved in executive team-building and strategy development, they had only
a peripheral awareness of the evolving discontent of either the customers or the Customer Service employees. This was the first time that the
Company had been involved with another company in creating successful customer relationships.

Software Developers - The Software Developers were impatient with the Customer Service personnel's continuous questions coupled with
customers' complaints. As Software Developers are consumed with technical responsibilities, they had no time to help the Customer Service
representatives.

Customers - Since customers were now receiving their software through a different vendor configuration, the customers were confused as to
how the software should work and who should help them make it work. Customers had timely compliance requirements and could not afford to
be delayed in their software use. As the software was integrated to an end-user's internal systems, switching would be difficult and costly, but
not impossible. Unhappy customers represented a risk that should be eliminated. Also, since the Company is a market leader, there was concern
that unhappy customers might taint the Company's reputation for good quality and excellent support. Several competing companies had entered
the market and were aggressively pursuing the Company's market share. Customer satisfaction would have to be improved.

Company Culture - The culture of this Company was very nurturing and internally focused. Employees enjoyed many positive personal and
working relationships. Each department was also internally focused, having its own culture, and operating as separate business. Everyone loved
working for the Company, valuing its warm and friendly environment. It was therefore very difficult for management to declare that performance
was a problem. Customer Service leadership continued to tell Customer Service representatives that they were doing a great job, as good as
could have been expected. Leadership knew problems would have to be dealt with eventually, but not, they believed, at the expense of
disturbing friendly internal relationships.

So who owned the problem -- The Software Developers, the Customer Service division, or the Vendors?

Systems Analysis
Two premises come to mind to help solve this dilemma. The first premise is that all organizational activity is interdependent. These
interdependencies are grounded in the diverse needs of the organizational stakeholders - the end-users, equity owners, and employees. Their
needs define their expectations of each other; therefore, their interdependencies emerge. Lack of satisfaction occurs when interdependencies are
not aligned among groups.

Employees seem to be the critical group in facilitating this alignment. Employees serve end-users' and equity owners' needs by delivering
products and support while limited by owners' allocated resources. They can balance these needs to satisfy both groups.

The second premise is that employees can satisfy their customers' needs (equity owners and end-users) only when their own needs have been
met! Equity-owners must structure the organization to meet these needs.

The remainder of this discussion is focused on the identification and satisfaction of employee needs, as it is suggested that this satisfaction will
ensure end-user and equity owner satisfaction.

Employee Satisfaction
The first initiative focused on preparing the employees to identify changes needed, using metrics to effect these changes. Benchmarking
activities helped employees compare their Customer Service activities to those of other similar organizations. They discovered that at times the
end-users tended to be unreasonable with their requests, but Customer Service representatives would comply because they thought they
needed to ensure satisfaction. Once the employees had a better frame of reference for focusing their time to answer legitimate questions, they
eliminated time spent on peripheral issues so they could move on to another end-user with a more urgent need. The employees also began to
get an idea of what other organizations measured as performance indicators. Previously, there were no metrics in place. The employees were
feeling more satisfaction due to their new knowledge and best practices of the Customer Service arena. It was gratifying to be part of a world
that took such pride in its endeavors, sharing successes and problems for everyone's information and learning.

The second initiative tackled the difficulties between Software Developers and the Customer Service representatives. They worked out a
schedule for sharing critical technical information, each group needing information from the other. They agreed to a support schedule for
answering technical questions, as well as education sessions for the Customer Service representatives. Also, Customer Service representatives
shared information on end-user issues and questions, providing insights to the Software Developers. These joint sessions also addressed new
vendor topics, including vendor information and workflows to help with new system installation, implementation, and operations. Customer
Service representatives were now much more confident in their ability to support end-users.

A third initiative focused on the cultural aspects of the organization. Since the culture was so nurturing and supportive, all employees were
engaged in the change initiative and then given the responsibility and accountability for actually making the changes. Employees were provided
sufficient industry information, company strategy, as well as competitive and technical information for decision-making. They also established
an understanding of all customer/supplier relationships, both internal and external to the organization. Now the engaged employees could
determine what changes they needed to make and create plans to implement them. These plans included a series of projects to complement each
other and maximize the use of common resources for efficiency. Customer Service representatives now had complete control for managing
customer satisfaction.

The next initiative focused on metrics. Targeted areas would include first-time call responses, time to resolve customer issues, and time spent in
internal education sessions. Customer Service representatives defined what was important to measure.

The final initiative formalized the commitment to the changed environment. Now that the changes had been defined, an industry-standard
program for planning, tracking, and making these changes was purchased and implemented. Customer Service representatives had a way to
sustain their progress on hard-won initiatives.

Results
New Customer Service operations and interactions with other groups yielded customer ratings of 95% satisfaction. Employee engagement,
empowerment, and structuring took two and one half years. All employees now had a new understanding of their own needs and those of other
employees, new common objectives, metrics, and goals for customer service ratings. As the "real customers," their satisfaction had improved.
Recognizing the importance of employee satisfaction is a critical, if not the most critical, component of customer satisfaction. When employee
needs are met, they are prepared to create organizational interdependencies that are aligned for the satisfaction of the equity owners and
end-users. The "real customers" had been duly recognized.