Customer Matrix Voice of the Customer 04/27/2020

Customer Matrix Voice of the Customer 04/27/2020

Purpose: The Customer Matrix identifies all customers and makes their needs visible and understood by the team making the improvement to or designing the process. Understanding customer needs is central to improving or designing processes that are efficient and effective. Use this tool to ensure all customer (internal and external, indirect and direct) needs are understood. Serves as a communication tool regarding the context and/or the specific focus of a project.

Definition: The Customer Matrix is a method for recognizing all the customers served by a process or system and identifying their needs and expectations. Customers in a Customer Matrix are identified as internal and external and direct and indirect. The reason organizations exist is to serve external direct customers. All customer needs must be considered as systems are designed to meet external direct customers. Customers are actual and potential users of your organization’s products, programs, and services. Customers include the end users, intermediate purchasers, and stakeholders. A customer is the next step in the process. Stakeholders are considered customers because they are affected by an organization’s actions and success. Stakeholders include customers, the workforce, partners, collaborators, governing boards, stockholders, donors, suppliers, taxpayers, regulatory bodies, policy makers, funders and communities. Internal Customers are within the organization and provide the output that creates value for the external customer. Internal customers can be direct or indirect. External Customers are outside the organization and are the receivers of the organization’s output and determine if the output meets their needs. External customers can be direct or indirect. Direct Customers are the reason the organization exists. They directly benefit from using the products, programs, or services that are delivered by the organization. An example of a direct customer in breeding is the National programs who market the seed to farmers. Indirect Customers have a stake in the organization’s work but are not the reason the organization exists. An example of an indirect customer in breeding might be the supplier of the reagents for the labs. The supplier benefits from selling the reagent. Critical to Quality are the things that are truly critical to the customer’s perception of quality. CTQs are easily measured.

When to use: A customer centric organization designs processes to meet customer needs. This tool is used at the beginning of an improvement project to help the team understand the customer needs and expectations and what the outputs are of the organization to meet the needs. It helps the team focus, consider the entire system and all the customers, and identify areas that need improvement. This tool is generally used before the SIPCO map. Note: You may want to involve your customers in the process of documenting their needs.

How to use: 1. Identify all the customers both internal and external, direct and indirect of the process you are studying. 2. List all the needs of each customer. 3. List the output from your organization that is intended to meet each need. 4. List the customer expectations about the output. 5. If desired, list what is critical to quality in your process and how you measure it. Notes: Sometimes teams add CTQs and metrics to their Customer Matrix to provide additional information about how customer needs are met.

Example – Internal and External Customers

Example of Customer Matrix

Excel Template Customer Matrix Direct/IndirectCustomer Needs Output Expectation CTQ (optional) Metric (Optional) Direct 5 new varieties per year tested variety higher yield Yield Trial Data % genetic gain NARS