Category: <span>Performance Management</span>

Finding Customer Satisfaction in the Data

Performance Management

Finding Customer Satisfaction in the Data

The Challenge: An IT management organization servicing the Intelligence Community was perplexed by mixed signals — its customer satisfaction survey results were inconsistent with the number of real-time customer complaints received by senior executives.

Our Approach: Fuel’s experts took the initiative, conducting an in-depth study of the tens of thousands of surveys returned during the previous 13 months. The application of best practices analysis and insights from a J.D. Powers-trained colleague illuminated the issue — not the survey instrument itself, but critical errors in the scoring schema that exaggerated satisfaction ratings.

The Result: Confirming senior managers’ intuition, the actual change ticket satisfaction rate was 15% less than reported, while the actual incident ticket satisfaction rate was 5% less than reported. Armed with this knowledge, Fuel’s enlightened senior executives, at no additional charge, identified a solution to implement a weighted rating schema that employed the existing instrument while incorporating the algorithms necessary to score it correctly, and train the survey owner and its consultants on how to interpret the data.

Process Improvement Jolts Performance

Performance Management

Process Improvement Jolts Performance

The Challenge: An intelligence community Internet service provider (ISP) faced the unique challenge of stabilizing network operations during a period of unprecedented demand. “Firefighting” was clearly no longer a sustainable management practice, but alternative measures had failed.

Our Approach: Fuel worked with the program manager and the client to illuminate the problem: classic stovepiping. With the ultimate goal of transforming the organization into a process-centric operation, the best course of action was energizing the ISP by preparing its processes for an ISO 9000 Quality Management System (QMS) registration, the completion of which would help ensure that it meets the needs of customers and other stakeholders while meeting ISP statutory and regulatory requirements.

The Result: Working closely with leadership and other stakeholders, Fuel ensured that ISO 9000’s QMS requirements were met; that process performance was quantified using appropriate metrics; that corrective and preventive actions were documented and traceable; and that regular management review would uncover nonconformities. Fuel’s efforts resulted in the ISP becoming the first Intelligence Community office ever to receive ISO 9000 registration. Additionally, network availability increased from less than 97% to more than 99%.