A friend’s elderly mother purchased a new car. She opened the owner’s manual to figure out how to set her favorite radio stations before driving home. Imagine her surprise to find that the sales person had already programmed the radio stations in the new car from her old one! A friend stopped on her way home from a manicure, saying she just had to tell someone about the experience she had with her manicurist, who not only walked her to her car and opened the door but put the key in the ignition and started the car so my friend wouldn’t muss up her nail polish.

Did my friends talk about the new car and the fabulous manicure or the value added service they received? Certainly both, but the value added services led the conversation in every telling!

We feel satisfied when we get something that we need or want because our desires are fulfilled. We know that a customer can be anyone who receives something they perceive to be of value, a product or a service, from an individual or organization. Customers are both internal and external to the organization, each with his or her needs, wants and desires.

Customer service standards are on the rise. When customers deal with you, they compare you to anyone else from whom they’ve received (great) service, not just someone from the same industry.

Have you ever watched a baby take its first steps? It is quite a sight to see. The baby may wobble back and forth as she or he tries to stand upright and maintain balance. Then a parent coaxes the child to step forward. The child, often while gazing intently at the parent, takes that first tentative step...and then another...and another. The child precariously spans the divide between self and parent. For other children, only one step is taken before falling on their diapered bottoms. Even this minimal success may be followed by cheers from the parent and squeals of delight from the baby. But before long children master the art of walking and the parents face a new challenge...how to keep the child walking in the right direction. Toward the sofa...toward mom or dad—Good! Toward the street—Bad!

It is crucial to move in the right direction. Failure to do so can have tragic, even fatal, results. On a recent morning I was watching the news and learned that overnight three fatal car accidents had occurred in my metropolitan area overnight. Two were the result of vehicles going the wrong way on the highway. It is likely that at the moment these vehicles moved into the lane that took them onto the highway, they believed they were headed in the right direction. It was late, dark, and there was not a lot of traffic on the highway. But it probably did not take too long for the error to be realized as the drivers looked up and saw one or more vehicles headed toward them with headlights blaring in the darkness. Unfortunately, sometimes businesses make changes they think will take them in the right direction. However, what makes sense intuitively sometimes takes us in the wrong direction. The good news? This can easily be avoided. The only way to know for sure what direction to go in is to be well informed. You need to be aware of internal and external forces that may impact the success of your business. One sure means of empowerment is to gain knowledge of the right direction by conducting employee and customer surveys.

Most weekday mornings I get up around 5:00 A.M. to get ready for my work day. Part of my morning routine involves turning on the television to catch the weather forecast. I live in a climate where the weather can be quite variable. In the morning people may be wearing layered clothing and jackets and by the middle of the afternoon they are wearing shorts and T-shirts. Or some days it is just the opposite; you start out in short sleeves and before the day is over the temperature has dropped 20 or 30 degrees and you are grabbing for your jacket. Precipitation here also varies considerably. One moment there is not a cloud in the sky and a few minutes later it is dark and raining so hard you can barely see to drive.

I watch the weather forecast in the mornings in order to be prepared for these temperature and precipitation changes. I feel more prepared for leaving the house if I know what to expect. The forecast enables me to know whether to wear a sweater, jacket, or raincoat, or if I need to take such items with me for use later in the day. Knowledge of the forecast also helps me make an informed decision regarding footwear – Is it okay to wear leather shoes or do I need to wear shoes that are waterproof? Do I need to take an umbrella?

Once I leave home and begin my commute to work, I begin to notice other people on their way to work or school. Observing them, I sometimes come to the conclusion that many of them either did not watch a weather forecast before leaving home that morning or, did so but ignored it. I decide this because I will see people out in short sleeves with no jackets with their arms crossed over, shivering in the 49 degree morning. On other occasions I see people trying to cover their heads with a newspaper or anything else they can find as the rain pours down on them and they have neither a raincoat nor an umbrella.

Unfortunately, I observe the same lack of preparedness in some companies who do not affectively anticipate the behavior of consumers. Some businesses try to be successful by looking to other companies as models of excellence. In an article on factors affecting success in business, written by research professor Spyros Makridakis and published in the European Management Journal, this approach of looking for prescriptions from past success stories is discouraged. Makridakis argues that management theories and tools are like the fashion industry in that they have their moment of glory and die. He observes that very few survive and sometimes their passing leaves extensive corporate damage. When reviewing the large number of theories that have briefly blossomed from the 1960s onwards, he suggests we avoid extrapolating from those past success stories.

For Immediate Release – Addison, Texas, Sep. 30, 2009 - The National Business Research Institute, a world leader in survey research, today announced the promotion of Melissa Barba to Vice President of Research Consulting and Administration.

Known as multi-source feedback, multi-rater feedback, multi-source assessment, and the full-circle appraisal, 360 degree feedback has taken hold across America in organizations large and small.  In fact, research indicates that over 90% of Fortune 1000 companies use some type of multi-source feedback.

During World War II, the military used feedback from multiple sources to evaluate performance; businesses then began gathering feedback from multiple sources.  Although gathering feedback from multiple sources gained momentum throughout the 1990s, collecting and compiling feedback was time consuming and cumbersome using a paper system.  In this millennium, gathering feedback from multiple sources using web-based questionnaires has streamlined the process.