Anthony W. Ulwick

The innovation and the impact

To improve its service delivery approach, AMO transitioned from a transaction approach to a relationship approach to
customer service. As Rago explained, “Before, we had a first- in, first-out approach to customer service. A customer had no relationship with the person who happened to answer the phone when they called. Now, the top clients are automatically directed to a dedicated advocate who can handle anything that the customer needs. The next tier of clients go to regional customer care teams, or pods—a small team that works together to know the customer, and manage any concerns that the customer has.”

AMO introduced advocates and regional customer care teams. Customers then had a single point of contact within AMO and a voice inside the company to address the range of issues they confront. If a customer issue required additional research, an AMO advocate or member of the care team had responsibility for problem resolution, ensuring that customers with tricky problems no longer had to navigate opaque internal processes without a guide. Physical proximity among team members of different functional areas also improved communication and coordination to resolve customer problems. As a result, the customer’s problems were resolved faster and more thoroughly.

In addition, the customer service team assumed a more strategic role within AMO. Advocates and care team members reached out to customers on a regular basis to identify potential issues. Regional sales calls included

customer care team members to ensure that everyone knew what changes were taking place and which accounts were
being threatened. This enabled AMO to proactively head off potential account problems and better anticipate how to grow account revenues.

AMO’s management team also learned that not having the right lenses on hand for a surgical case was a big problem for materials managers. Because this particular problem has more to do with the ongoing back-office operations of a surgical center than with vendor service and support, it had not occurred to AMO or its competitors to address it. But once the ODI methodology brought the problem to AMO’s attention, the company was able to develop an advanced schedule-planning and inventory management software module that facilitated accurate and timely replenishment of lenses based on upcoming case needs, current inventory, and other considerations.

The implementation of these service offerings had immediate positive results:

• 
  AMO’s Net Promoter score increased by nearly 10 percent in the year following introduction of the service innovations.
  
• 
  A MarketScope industry survey showed that industry perceptions of AMO’s overall business practices and of the quality of its products and services has improved significantly since introduction of the innovations.
  
• 
  AMO’s corporate survey showed that its customer loyalty index improved by 14 percentage points in the year following introduction of the innovations.
  

Two years later, AMO was awarded the prestigious Omega Management NorthFace Award, which recognizes world- class customer satisfaction.