Who Is Your Customer?
The term "customer" is not often a well-received term in education... but it is critical to quality and continuous improvement! Why?- because without a solid understanding of who the customer is, how does one know what the requirements, expectations and needs are of those being served?
In a previous blog entry, I discussed the concept of student centered vs. adult centered classrooms which contains a strong focus on the student as the customer. Classrooms that are "customer" focused are tuned in to 3 key areas:
- First, customer wants are researched and understood
- Then, systems are created to meet the needs of the customer
- Finally, customer satisfaction is monitored and adjustments made to the classroom system
What happens to organizations that are not customer focused? Can quality be achieved in a system that does not serve the customer? How do you know what your customers want, need and expect? How do you measure customer satisfaction?
Comments
I find that the word "customer" is received negatively by education and healthcare. For some reason when we call a person with a health need a "patient" it changes the focus of the system....just kidding of course.
Perhaps when we begin to realize that it isn't the "name"..... but the "need"(and the alignment of the system's capability to meet that need) that is important then we may be able to make progress in bringing together a common vocabulary.
Posted by: Gary Nesteby | July 19, 2006 02:00 PM
Gary,
Thanks for your comment. I like your thought about the "Need" rather than the name that is important.
It seems to me our challenge is go get our employees to see the value in identifying the need before delivering services...
Jay
Posted by: Jay Marino | July 19, 2006 02:57 PM
Student is an internal customer; more of an operator. because student is equally responsive part of the team for inducing the transformation (to be carried out by the teacher. Being a raw material him(er) self student presents himself for the transformation.
The Main customer is the society, who is the beneficiary of any transformation the students has received
Posted by: Priyavrat Thareja | July 24, 2006 01:34 AM