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Customer Satisfaction Surveys
"Our policy of continuous improvement demands regular, reliable and measurable feedback from customers on issues such as quality, service and range. For six years now, the Surveys that Maven has gathered and interpreted, has fed into our management processes, allowing us not only to examine trends, but to identify and focus action plans for key areas. They have helped us better to understand both our customers and the key market drivers, and as a result to improve our customer service performance, year on year."
Adam Richold, Head of Marketing.
British Gypsum is the UK's leading supplier and foremost authority on internal wall and ceiling systems, with a century long history and a proven record of providing effective lining solutions. From homes, hospitals and schools to major commercial projects, buildings in the UK rely on British Gypsum performance warranted partition, wall lining, ceiling and encasement systems to provide fully integrated solutions for structural fire protection, moisture resistance, sound insulation, space division or simply aesthetic demands.
British Gypsum produces a range of more than 1000 individual products, marketed under leading brand names; Gyproc, Gypframe, Glasroc, Thistle, Arteco and Isowool. They market their range of products and services to a variety of customers and channels including Housebuilders, Builders Merchants, National DIY Chains, Contractors and Distributors.
British Gypsum offers a comprehensive range of services to Architects, Local Authorities and other specifiers, from assistance at the outset of the project, through to personal advice and help through their Drywall Academy Advice Centre.
British Gypsum has an enviable reputation for product quality and all products and systems are subject to a programme of continuous innovation and development. This approach is underpinned by their ethos of 'Pure Innovation' and this process is a vital part of their commitment to builders, specifiers and all their clients. British Gypsum operate in a mature, competitive market and are similarly keen to maintain and extend their strong base of satisfied customers and support customer loyalty.
Eight years ago, they decided to further develop their customer focus by creating a Customer Satisfaction Measurement Process to keep in touch with their customers' view of their products and service delivery. British Gypsum consulted Maven Management and decided to use the Parasuraman, Zeithmal and Berry Gap Analysis model. This is a proven research tool used to identify and then measure key, customer driven performance criteria.
The initial qualitative work was conducted in 1998 to establish their customers' expectations of an ideal manufacturer and supplier in their market. This was followed by a quantitative Gap study to measure the strength of these expectations and their perception of British Gypsum's performance.
Key priorities emerge from identifying those issues where customers have high expectations and where a significant gap exists between their expectation and their performance. This then enables the research process to identify exactly where improvements are needed.
This clarity allows better targeting of resources against those key performance gaps and these key high expectation items can be used to form the basis of an on going Customer Satisfaction Index.
The base of customer expectations was revisited in 2002 to revalidate and adapt the ongoing measure in response to any market change. Each year Maven interview about 750 customers to track performance in selected key areas and monitor the perception of any changes made.
This ongoing quantitative research outputs overall satisfaction scores by customer type, region, brand and performance factors such as Product, Supply and Delivery, Administration Support, Client Handling, Technical Assistance and Training. A priority matrix is produced for each factor that clearly shows where British Gypsum meets high expectations and where work is required in response to current perceptions. This annual research also seeks a market view of competitor performance against these selected factors
These results are studied by the Marketing team and the British Gypsum Board where top priorities for improvement are agreed and targets set. Small, cross functional workgroups then use a Problem Solving Process to convert the customer research into Action Plans.
The status of these planned action is then reviewed within their Management Process - an approach which has yielded five years of steady improvement.
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