Customer Value Research
For the past two years Buying Solutions has been conducting customer value research with objectives designed to provide an understanding of customer perceptions of the services being provided and to identify potential areas for improvement.
The customer value research is a quarterly survey which allows for quick reaction times to the responses from customers. Customers are selected at random to take part with approximately 1,000 customers taking part each year. The telephone interviews are managed externally by a supplier within Functional Consultancy, to allow for an unbiased view with each interview lasting approximately 15-20 minutes.
The questionnaire is split into a number of sections:
- Customer classification
- Usage, attitudes and perceptions
- Customer satisfaction and overall measures
- Customer Value Indicators (CVIs)
- Problem Incident Tracking
- Category Questions
Customer Classification
The classification section of the survey looks at which sectors our respondents come from, their role within their organisation, whether they use Buying Solutions Frameworks or Managed Services, when they last used Buying Solutions, how long they have been a customer of Buying Solutions, their procurement budget and whether they utilise other procurement routes. All of this important information helps to create a profile of our customer base and allow us to better understand our customers. Within the last quarter of 07/08 the majority of respondents were from Central Government (23.5%), Health (21.2%), and Local Government (18.8%) respectively. Most respondents were members of a procurement team within their organisation (43.1%). Figure 1 below demonstrates that just over half (52.5%) of respondents used OGCbuying.solutions within the last month.
Figure 1: Customer Breakdown Quarter 4 (2007-08)*
Usage, Attitudes and Perceptions
During the last quarter of 07/08 we witnessed a decrease in the proportion of customers who had their own framework agreements, from 30% in Q3 07/08 to just 16.5% in Q4. Respondents concurred with statements that expressed confidence in Buying Solutions' ability to deliver (81.2%) and agreed that Buying Solutions were easy to use (65.5%). A large proportion of respondents anticipated their future use of Buying Solutions increasing (45.9%). Fig 2 details which statement best describes respondents usage of Buying Solutions.
Figure 2: Usage Statement Breakdown Quarter 4 (2007-08)*
Customer Satisfaction and Overall Measures
93.3% of customers in our latest survey results stated that they were either very satisfied (29.0%) or somewhat satisfied (64.3%) with their overall experience of using Buying Solutions. This is an improvement on our previous quarter's overall satisfaction rate (90.6%). Fig 3 compares our last two quarters.
In terms of being sector-specific satisfaction rates were high across all major sectors with many showing an improvement from the previous quarter. These include Central Civil Government with a 95% satisfaction rate, Local Government 89%, Health 98.1% and Devolved Administration with an incredible 100% satisfaction rating - an increase of 12% on the previous quarter.
Figure 3: Customer Satisfaction Quarter 3 & Quarter 4 (2007-08)*
Customer Value Indicators (CVIs)
For the past two years customers have been asked to rate a set of 31 customer defined value indicators (CVIs) both in terms of importance to them and also in terms of Buying Solutions performance. Following an extensive review of the survey the number of customer indicators which Buying Solutions will be measured against has been reduced to a core set of 21 CVIs. For the financial year 08/09 we will be using the new revised CVIs.
The top ten CVIs from the last quarter of 07/08 in order of importance to customers are as follows:
- They save me/my organisation time and/or resource
- They leverage buying power effectively
- The quality of the frameworks are consistently high
- The framework agreements are fit for purpose
- They save me/my organisation money
- They demonstrate good value for money/efficiency savings
- They offer a fast, flexible and efficient service
- Their pricing, commission structure and T's & C's are clear and transparent
- They offer a high standard of customer service and support
- They actively help to resolve any issues or problems with suppliers
The CVIs are separated into three categories: Quality and Value, Performance and Delivery and Customer Focus. In general Buying Solutions scores highest on the Quality and Value indicators.
Category Specific Questions
Following our review of the customer research survey and a restructure within our organisation it was deemed imperative that we have a means of measuring satisfaction within each category driven team. Depending on the category where their custom lies customers are now asked a specific set of questions focusing on performance delivery and satisfaction within that area. Our seven categories are as follows:
- Travel
- Professional Services
- IT Hardware
- IT Software
- Utilities
- Networks
- Facilities
We look forward to seeing the results from this latest aspect of the survey and ensuring that performance in those areas remains high and that we continue to respond and ameliorate our business according to customer perception.
Problem incident tracking
The final section of the questionnaire seeks to discover if the customer has experienced a problem either in using Buying Solutions or directly with a supplier. Some of the areas customers felt could be improved were the navigation of the website, query response times and delivery times. Each recorded query passes into our compliments and complaints procedure for resolving.
Other Research Activity
Through the main customer research survey we are able to spot trends for further analysis which leads to additional customer research. We have recently undertaken some telephone interviews around improving our website, some online research for our Public Sector Procurement magazine and conducted some focus groups to help us understand in greater depth some of the issues raised from our customer research.
Now that our organisation is following a category management approach to procurement, our customer research can take on a particular category aspect. This has already been reflected in our ongoing customer research with the introduction of category specific questions. We are increasingly becoming involved with the business needs of each category team.
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