becoming a customer-focused
Visit the website at: workforce.gsfc.nasa.gov/a3b.htmlColW^3
Goddard Space Flight Center is at the dawn of great changes and unequaled opportunities. Our Center contains a tremendous number of talented people who have provided world-class products and services for over a generation. We must continue to move forward by applying our expertise to ensure that our products and services are both leading edge and desired by potential customers. That is, we must be "customer focused" in developing and promoting new technologies as well as providing value added products and services to our current and future customers.
A.V. Diaz Director,
Coddard Space Flight Center ^ |sj
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/ V |aybe you've heard the term "customer focus." Maybe you've read about it in business management articles and organizational success stories. But what does it mean? Many organizations realize that the key to long-term competitive advantage lies in improving customer focus—that is, treating customers in ways that, build loyal, lasting relationships and repeat business. While this concept has become more widely recognized, identifying and implementing strategies to build an organization that is truly customer focused is challenging.
cus#tom»er: Any individual, group, or organization that receives and/or pays for a product or service or that arranges to have the product or service provided.
Customer focus is a combination of strategies, initiatives, activities, skills, behaviors, and attitudes of an organization to understand customer's needs and to effectively meet those needs.
Customer focus is quite straightforward. Customer focus is underpinned by an attitude in everything we do that prompts us to constantly ask ourselves, "How do I add value for the customer?"
Customer focus is NOT simply:
•	"Smiles" service
•	A metaphorical "the customer is always right" mantra
Customer focus is:
•	Understanding customer needs - the determinants of their (not your!) success.
•	Having the ability to meet those needs - delivering a quality product or service.
•	A commitment by every member of the organization to be responsive, flexible, and provide their best expertise.
•	Actively performing market analysis to anticipate and plan for supporting customer needs in the future.
Customer focus extends beyond the individual concept of service quality to include actions of the front line,
of supervisors and management. It is also embodied in the organization's fundamental leadership philosophy, operating systems, and culture.
Customer-focused organizations:
•	Strategically base their organizational structure, work processes, decisions and actions on the desires of current and future customers.
•	Maintain a proactive orientation. They have a deep understanding of customer's needs and issues, communicate this understanding across internal functional areas and anticipate and solve problems/challenges before they arise.
•	Understand their customers' needs and issues well enough to predict their future requirements and help guide customers accordingly. This understanding is shared across all functional areas and with suppliers.
LIBRARY U. OF I,	•L/ustomer focus is important because the customer defines success. Without customers, there is no reason to exist. In other words, only the customer can say whether we have been successful.
Also, we are mandated by the President (Executive Order #12862) and the NASA Administrator to become "customer focused." Our responsibility to satisfy our customers is explicitly spelled out in the NASA Strategic Plan
Customer Focus and the Future NASA
"The NASA Strategic Plan is based on our commitment to satisfy our external customers.
Our performance in carrying out programs, and our success as an Agency, will be judged by our customers, based on our ability to meet their requirements."
Source: The NASA Strategic Plan, 1998
"President Clinton's new [customer service] directive leaves no doubt that the goal is a revolution in how government does business, top to bottom, so that customers are the focus."
Vice President Al Gore
Source: Putting Customers First '95: Standards for Serving the American People, p.6^°c#sea, ac"S£0/1'
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customer focused organization is one that:
•	Listens to its customers (uses the voice of its customers) as a primary driving force
•	Creates a strategic vision that is focused on the customer
•	Bases its organizational structure, work processes, and decisions and actions on what is best for current and future customers
•	Captures customer focus objectives and communicates them to its workforce
•	Scans the organization to identify and improve strategies, plans, and processes that are inconsistent with what their customers value
•	Learns from the leaders (organizations with exceptional customer focus)
•	Enables its workforce to better serve the customer
•	Eliminates or changes processes that are barriers to customer satisfaction (continuous improvement)
•	Strives to exceed customer expectations by meeting unstated needs
•	Ensures early and strong partnering with the customer; AND maintains partnership throughout the life of a project
•	Measures its own effectiveness
•	"Walks the talk" (i.e., having leaders, policies, processes, programs, and employees that support customer focus)
•	Feeds customer requirement information into quality improvement and change initiatives
Adapted From: Richard C. Whiteley, The Customer Driven Company: Moving From Talk to Action, Reading MA: Addison-Wesley, 1991
Customer focus pervades all parts of an organization and is embedded in its culture. It is an attitude that is reflected in all aspects of an organization's performance. Customer focus must be fundamental to all operations of an organization. It is not enough to relegate customer focus to a single separate service department or marketing organization.The transformation to a customer focused organization is straightforward. It begins with each of us!
We can be more customer focused by committing to:
•	A continuous and conscious effort to satisfy the customer
•	Frequent, detailed, and timely communications with the customer w
•	Focusing on HOW services are delivered (in addition to WHAT is delivered)
•	Active collection, management, and dissemination of "customer intelligence" (information about the customers and their needs)
•	Overt planning of how customers fit into our organizations' work plans and core business processes
Goddard's Customer Credo*
At Goddard, Customer Focus is Everyone's Business!
WE recognize that we need our customers and therefore want to build strong and lasting relationships with them.
WE treat customers with courtesy, dignity, and respect.
WE partner with our customers to achieve mutual success.
WE ask customers what they need to be successful.
WE listen to customers and act on what they tell us.
WE value the creativity, dedication and integrity of employees who satisfy customers.
WE reward innovative people who take risks that result in improved service to our customers.
WE MEET ALL OUR COMMITMENTS.
*credo - a strongly held or frequently affirmed belief or conviction.3 0112 043343943
Customer Focus Strategy Team
This brochure resulted from a year-long effort of the "Customer Focus Strategy Team" who studied customer focused organizations, benchmarked with other federal agencies and the private sector and looked at Goddard Space Flight Center in light of its own achievements and those of others. The work of this team is not finished. Now it needs the momentum and support of the entire Goddard community. The team is committed to helping all Goddard organizations to become more customer focused by coordinating our effort centerwide. The support of Center leadership will enable us to do this. If you would like more information about ongoing center initiatives or assistance in your own organization, visit the web site at workforce.gsfc.nasa.gov/a3b.html and feel free to use the team members as a
resource.
Donna Walls	x6-7588
Peter Hughes	x6-3120
Steve Kempler	x6-5319
Denise Konopka	x6-1382
Vicki Oxenham	x6-7203
Dave Rosage	x6-5226