Although the Customer Focus Plan is a part of my TQC program, you can employ it now on your own.

Let me tell you a story… a young lady in the R & D department of a major Midwestern corporation spent 2 ½ days per month for three years assembling a report that was distributed to 21 people. When she participated in the development of her Customer Focus Plan and sought recipients’ expectations, she discovered that not one of them had ever read it. Talk about a rude awakening. The report was dropped, and she was thrilled to gain 2 ½ days each month to do something truly valuable for the company.

The Customer Focus Plan concept is quite simple, and it takes only a modest effort to implement.

For each employee’s primary duties, some person or some entity is the beneficiary. Who is it?

The next step is crucial… What are the expectations of that beneficiary (customer)? If the customer is internal, you only need to ask. For external customers, asking could be the answer or maybe it’s a simple post card query.

The method of measurement (at least annually) is in the form of two questions:
(1) How did I do in meeting your expectations?
(2) Where could I improve?

Implement a Customer Focus Plan and you’ll discover that for many employees, this is a whole new (and satisfying) way to look at their jobs. For you, it’s a way to improve the services of your entire enterprise.