1. Customer Focus
Assessment Survey
Find out How Customer Focused Your
Organisation Really Is!
This questionnaire asks you to evaluate your organisation on the essential practices and behaviours in
which management must engage to create and maintain a customer focus within their organisation. The
purpose of this survey is to identify opportunities to improve your organisation’s performance, profitable
growth, customer and people retention and overall competitiveness.
Directions
Read each statement carefully, reflecting upon how it relates to your organisation. Indicate as best you
can the degree to which the statements reflect reality in your organisation. A 1=not observed/clueless on
this one and a 5=this is part of daily work life and may even be a “best practice”
If for any reason you are unsure of your response e.g., you do not have enough information to rate a
particular item, then circle the zero under the DK, don’t know, box.
You are now ready to begin the survey.
Leadership
Please assess your organisation on the following leadership practices:
DK
1. Management at all levels regularly meets with customers to listen
and learn about their changing requirements, discuss performance
issues and to strengthen their relationship with the customer’s
organisation.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
2. Management’s actions and behaviours are always consistent
with their words regarding the importance of customers.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
3. Management places a priority on using customer feedback data
and the analysis and interpretation of this data to facilitate
improvement activity within their organisation.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
4. Management regularly recognises employees who have been role
models in satisfying and building good relationships with customers.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
5. Customer data (external and/or internal) is discussed in every
management review meeting often leading to the setting of
priorities and the taking of action for improvement.
0 1 2 3 4 5
Our biggest opportunity for improvement in our leadership practices
is: # _____
The strongest leadership practice is: #_____
© 2011 Centre for Innovation Management Europe and Wisdom of Leadership 1

2. People
Please assess your organisation on the following people practices:
DK
6. Our organisation’s human resource systems (e.g., recognition,
performance evaluation, empowerment and compensation)
reinforce the behaviours of our employees, both individually and
as teams, consistent with our values, a customer and market focus
and achievement of our key business objectives.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
7. Everyone in our organisation understands who their internal and
external customers are and the impact they can have on both sets
of customers by the quality of work they perform.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
8. Our people are empowered to do whatever is in the best interest
of our customers.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
9. Management reviews their comparisons of employee feedback
from satisfaction surveys, focus groups or informal
discussions and the customer feedback which the organisation to
help them set priorities for improvement.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
10. We believe that it is important to train our employees, especially
those in customer-contact positions, in softer areas such as
interpersonal skills, active listening and dealing with difficult or
angry individuals.
0 1 2 3 4 5
Our biggest opportunity for improvement in our people practices is:
# _____
The strongest people practice is: #_____
Policy and Strategy
Please assess your organisation on the following policy and strategy practices:
DK
11. Customer data and information are key to policy and strategy
formulation in our organisation. 0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
12. Specific relationship strategies are established during our planning
process for customer accounts and/or consumer/end user segments
most important to our organisation.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
13. Within our planning process we review how well our organisation is
aligned with our key customers to ensure that we are making it
easy for them to do business with us and we are doing those things
which will help them achieve their objectives.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
© 2011 Centre for Innovation Management Europe and Wisdom of Leadership 2

3. 14. During our planning activity, competitive comparisons and
benchmark data is utilised to formulate strategies that will ensure
we are highly differentiated from our competition both in our
markets and in the minds of our customers.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
15. New initiatives are evaluated for their impact on the customer
before they are implemented.
0 1 2 3 4 5
Our biggest opportunity for improvement in our policy and strategy
practices is: # _____
The strongest policy and strategy practice is: #_____
Partnerships & Resources
Please assess your organisation on the following partnership and resources practices:
DK
16. Our organisation understands what the long-term economic value
of a customer is and how it varies by consumer/end-use segment
or customer account.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
17. Our continuous improvement priorities represent a good balance
between customer requirements and the financial aims of our
organisation, erring most often on the side of the customer.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
18. Even when business is below our projections, we do not
compromise the allocation of resources to those things that we
know are most important to our customers.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
19. We prioritise our suppliers, at least in part, based upon the
value add which their input (e.g., materials, components,
information, services) provides to our customers.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
20. A high priority is placed on investing in state-of-the-art or
improving existing information systems used by employees in
customer-contact positions (e.g., sales, service) to ensure they can
be responsive to the customers they interact with on a daily basis.
0 1 2 3 4 5
Our biggest opportunity for improvement in our partnership and
resource practices is: # _____
The strongest partnerships and resources practice is: #_____
© 2011 Centre for Innovation Management Europe and Wisdom of Leadership 3

4. Process
Please assess your organisation on the following process practices:
DK
21. One of our priorities has been to identify, map and improve the
processes through which we provide products and services to
our customers.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
22. A key area of focus for our process improvement activity is on
making it easier for customers to do business with and to reduce cycle
time to be more responsive to their needs.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
23. Customer data and information is seen as a key input into our
organisation’s product and service development and innovation
activities.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
24. Best practice reviews are conducted if we can identify an opportunity
to add value to our customers, improve our own operation and
become more competitive as well.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
25. We have a formal and regular process that includes such approaches
as account reviews, customer focus groups and interviews for
determining and updating customer requirements, expectations
and identifying those factors that add value in the relationship.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
26. We effectively utilise our call centre or customer service operation
as a “listening post” to gain information about changing customer
expectations, emerging trends and competitive activity.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
27. We have a well-defined and effective customer satisfaction
measurement and management process in our organisation
ensuring we are collecting the right feedback from customers and
acting upon it in an effective and responsive manner.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
28. We have a well-defined and effective customer relationship
management process in place which ensures that we are building
loyalty particularly with those customers that are most important to our
long-term growth and success.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
29. We have a well-defined and effective complaint and enquiry
management process in place which ensures that complaints and
problems are resolved in a timely and effective manner ensuring
customer relationships are maintained and problems prevented from
reoccurring.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
30. We do not rely on just one source or type of customer feedback to
know how well we are doing with our customers. We look at multiple
sources or types such as that from customer surveys, complaints,
customer visits, call centres/customer service operations and others
before we set priorities for process, product, service, and policy
improvement as well as strategy development.
0 1 2 3 4 5
Our opportunity for improvement in our process practices is: # _____
The strongest process practice is: #_____
© 2011 Centre for Innovation Management Europe and Wisdom of Leadership 4

5. Customer Results
Please rate your organisation across all of the following result areas:
DK
31. Our customer satisfaction performance has continued to improve or
has been sustained at high levels across all those engagements
(moments of truth such as sales, service, delivery) with customers
that are most important to maintaining our relationship with them.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
32. Our customer satisfaction performance shows that we have
consistently improved the way in which we have met or exceeded the
unique requirements and expectations of our key customer
accounts and/or consumer/end user segments over the past three
years.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
33. The speed (e.g., cycle time) and effectiveness (e.g., retention of
customer loyalty) of our organisation’s problem and complaint
resolution has been steadily improving over the past three years.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
34. Our organisation has an accurate, realistic and comprehensive
overview of the total complaint level (verbal or written) as received
by all areas and all functions within our organisation.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
35. Customer satisfaction with our product and service quality has
been improving over the past three years.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
36. Our overall level of our customer satisfaction has been
comparable to or exceeded that of our competition over the past
three years.
0 1 2 3 4 5
People Results
DK
37. Employee perceptions, particularly those from employees in
customer-contact positions, are regularly captured through
surveys, focus groups or formal/informal discussions. These
perceptions, concerning such areas as work environment, career
prospects, communication, recognition, training, morale and overall
satisfaction, have consistently shown positive trends over the past
three years.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
38. We experience turnover and absenteeism among our customer-
contact employees that are so low that our organisation is
considered “best-in-class”.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
39. Our people satisfaction data shows that customer-contact
personnel feel empowered to take whatever action is necessary to
satisfy customers whenever the need arises.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
40. Our people satisfaction data shows that customer-contact
personnel feel involved by having their ideas for improvement
regularly solicited and acted upon by management.
0 1 2 3 4 5
© 2011 Centre for Innovation Management Europe and Wisdom of Leadership 5

6. Society Results
DK
41. Our organisation’s reputation as being customer focused has
improved over the past several years based upon feedback we
receive from those in the communities in which we are located and
from our corporate image survey.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
42. The ethical behaviour especially among our employees who have
regular contact with our customers has remained high for many
years.
0 1 2 3 4 5
Key Performance Results
DK
43. The number of improvements to our products, services and
processes over the past three years driven by customer feedback
has grown significantly.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
44. Our data shows that we are more responsive to changing market
conditions and customer needs as a consequence of our focus on
cycle time improvement.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
45. We track those supplier problems that impact our customers
and work with those suppliers to prevent re-occurrence. There has
been a steady decline in these types of supplier problems over the
past 3 years.
0 1 2 3 4 5
Our three biggest opportunities for improvement in result are:
# _____, #_____, #_____
The two strongest result areas are: #_____, #_____
© 2011 Centre for Innovation Management Europe and Wisdom of Leadership 6

7. Society Results
DK
41. Our organisation’s reputation as being customer focused has
improved over the past several years based upon feedback we
receive from those in the communities in which we are located and
from our corporate image survey.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
42. The ethical behaviour especially among our employees who have
regular contact with our customers has remained high for many
years.
0 1 2 3 4 5
Key Performance Results
DK
43. The number of improvements to our products, services and
processes over the past three years driven by customer feedback
has grown significantly.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
44. Our data shows that we are more responsive to changing market
conditions and customer needs as a consequence of our focus on
cycle time improvement.
0 1 2 3 4 5
DK
45. We track those supplier problems that impact our customers
and work with those suppliers to prevent re-occurrence. There has
been a steady decline in these types of supplier problems over the
past 3 years.
0 1 2 3 4 5
Our three biggest opportunities for improvement in result are:
# _____, #_____, #_____
The two strongest result areas are: #_____, #_____
© 2011 Centre for Innovation Management Europe and Wisdom of Leadership 6