Closed-loop customer service: EMS firm IMI believes customer satisfaction leads to more business.

Integrated Microelectronics Inc. took home the top prize as the overall winner for EMS companies with revenues greater than $100 million. In an interview, IMI marketing communications manager Fred Blancas explains the company's approach:

Feedback from the Service Excellence Awards is being evaluated to determine what needs improvement. Each of the customer ratings is useful because we will be able to know where we are strong, and pinpoint and address our weaknesses. For example, we have addressed suggestions for product design by assigning dedicated engineers to handle the design and development of our customers' products. For suggestions on reliability testing, we have installed a failure analysis and reliability laboratory. We have more than 10 new cutting-edge failure analysis machines to meet our customers' needs. We see to it that their concerns are addressed through closed-loop customer service corrective action procedures. Through customer ratings, we were able to identify what needs to be improved and develop a plan for improving each of the areas. Thus, this will help us constantly and consistently exceed our customers' expectations.

Our customer service quality metric is a formal process; we call this the Customer Satisfaction Score Card (CSSC). We set standard criteria agreed on by both IMI and the customer. Basically, we send a request to a customer, asking them to identify CTQs (Critical to Quality items) they would like us to be evaluated on. Based on the agreed standard criteria, we classify them into two sets of requirements. The first set is output requirements; our customers measure the quality, delivery, material management and price or cost. The other set refers to service requirements, in which customers measure us through timeliness and accuracy of reports and responsiveness to requests. These standard criteria are measured using Customer Rating Guidelines--a scale from 1 to 5.

Customer satisfaction feedback assessment is performed monthly for our captive or consignment customers (mostly Japanese) and quarterly for turnkey customers. All issues and concerns raised by customers are addressed by our closed-loop customer service Corrective Action Procedure (CAP). Corrections are made known to the customer for buy-in and closure. Moreover, the customer satisfaction scorecard is discussed during monthly meetings of the IMI management team. Highlighted during these meetings are best practices and opportunities for improvements. The results in the customer satisfaction scorecard show customers are satisfied with our service. This is again a closed-loop process and is done regularly to improve the customer rating. Customer satisfaction leads to more business opportunities.

Our customers have recognized us by giving us plaques of appreciation or letters of commendation for our quality service. More important, our customers have increased their volume orders or have expanded their business with us, giving us additional products or new models. Some have recommended us to other companies. In fact, just recently we obtained a new Japanese customer through our existing major Japanese customer.

We hold regular weekly meetings with our customers to discuss plans for corrective actions regarding existing issues, as well as the resolution of past issues. Some meetings are conducted daily, especially with our captive or consignment customers who have assigned representatives to oversee the line operations.

When service levels fall below our company's set standard criteria, a Customer Satisfaction Action Plan Report is requested; for example, if one of our business units received from a customer quality standard rating is a 3 or below in any of the Critical to Quality (CTQ) requirements. The report is then validated, and an improvement plan is formulated. The improvement plan is submitted to the customer to show we are addressing their concerns. The said process is again done through our closed-loop customer service corrective action procedures and is done regularly to continuously improve the business unit's performance, until such time that we have obtained our goal of a higher level of customer satisfaction.

Customer service is very important to the bottom line. It is not exactly measured, but once you have a good handle on knowing what is in customers' hearts and minds, and demonstrate a sincere desire to help them with anything they need, they are willing to continue doing business with you. Most of our customers have done business with us for more than five years. What's interesting is that quite a number of major customers have stayed with us for more than 10 years.

We put emphasis on both retaining customers and gaining new ones. We see to it that customers we already have are well taken care of and are given excellent customer service because our loyal customers require no additional marketing or setup costs. Generally, they provide higher revenue for us. Also they are less sensitive to price and refer new customers. But we also try to find new customers to achieve our goal of joining the ranks of the top 20 global EMS providers and to post $1 billion in revenue by 2011.