Good morning, readers. As discussed, a key activity when defining a Lean Six Sigma project is identifying the customer’s critical-to-quality characteristics (CTQs). The Customer Needs Mapping Template is a tool that helps us do this quickly. It is shown below:
| Voice of the Customer | Service/Quality Issue | Customer Need | Output Characteristic |
|---|---|---|---|
| What does the customer tell us? | What is wrong from the customer’s perspective, based on their feedback or the data collected? | What is wrong? What does the customer need? | A concise statement of the customer’s needs and how they apply to our product, process or service. |
Use the following guidelines to complete the table:
- Voice of the Customer. Record the customer’s exact statement.
- Service/Quality Issue. The team must agree on exactly what causes customer dissatisfaction.
- Customer Needs.
- Identify the need, not the solution.
- Include examples to make the need clear.
- Use measurable terms where possible.
- Verify the need with the customer.
- Output Characteristic.
- Be concise. A few words can describe the output characteristic of the product, process or service that the project needs to improve—for example, requiring fewer documents from a customer or delivering a debit card faster.
- Use measurable terms whenever possible.
- Verify output characteristics with the project champion.
To understand the tool better, consider the following banking example:
| Voice of the Customer | Service/Quality Issue | Customer Need | Output Characteristic |
|---|---|---|---|
| “I am confused. I do not know how to log into online banking.” | Access to online banking is unclear. | Simplify access to online banking. | Minimize the number of steps needed to log into online banking. |
| “I am tired of not getting an answer about the status of my loan application.” | There is insufficient communication about the application’s status. | Access to information about the application’s status. | Provide status updates at each significant step.
Set customer expectations: define the time needed to process a loan. |
| “I am always put on hold or transferred to the wrong person.” | The customer cannot reach the person they need. | Reach the right person on the first attempt. | Answer promptly.
Connect the customer to the right person the first time. |
Once output characteristics are defined and verified, select the one appropriate for your project. Priorities usually depend on problem frequency, customer impact and how easily the errors causing the problem can be corrected.
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Related reading: Critical-to-Quality Parameters (CTQs)
