• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Remember our three blind mice? When they “observed” the elephant, they had a hard time figuring out what it was until they were allowed to communicate what they observed (triangulation). Since they were able to identify the animals correctly, it would seem that there was no need to vary this strategy or methodology—only the sampling and source. A more accurate form of triangulation uses multiple methods and strategies. If the elephant were alive rather than a museum exhibit, one mouse could use touch, another smell, and the third could ask the elephant a well-thought-out set of questions.

Triangulation dictates that you use different sources, methodologies, and types of measures. Table 7-1 reflects the possibilities.

You can use other groupings for triangulation. I offer these because I know they work, and they are simple to implement. The idea is to address at least three different viewpoints, sources, and methods of collection.

The concept of triangulation can be used at each level of the metric. I don't suggest you go too deeply or you may find that you are collecting thousands of different measures. I want you to use triangulation at the top level—in the case of effectiveness metrics, at the Delivery, Usage, and Customer Satisfaction level. But, you can use the same concept at the next level.

For Customer Satisfaction, you could use the following three different methods of collection: surveys, focus groups, and interviews. This can be very expensive, especially interviews. But you could also use two different surveys—the annual survey given to a large portion of your customer base, and the trouble call survey. You can also use work-order surveys—questionnaires provided to customers when you deliver your service/product. This is another survey of your active customer base, but it doesn't require a problem. You can also administer satisfaction surveys three to six months after delivery to see if the customer:

Continues to be satisfied with the service or product now that the initial excitement may have worn off

Has new insights to the strengths or weaknesses of your product or service

Has recommended your service or products to others

Usage also allows for multiple measures. You can measure the number of unique customers, repeat customers, and the frequency of customer “purchases” of your services and products. I recently bought a new laptop from Best Buy and the experience was so enjoyable that I took my adult daughter there the next week. She bought a laptop for herself (nothing at all like the one I bought) and I couldn't help but buy a wireless keyboard and mouse (which I'm using to type this). Not only was I a repeat customer, but I referred someone else the next week (actually I drove her to the store, helped her pick out a computer, and offered to carry it to the car for her). All of this could be used to measure usage.

I saved Delivery for last because it is the one most easily triangulated. In the program I developed for my organization, I broke delivery into the following three major factors:

Availability

Speed

Accuracy

Availability is straightforward and not always applicable. Is the service or product available when the customer wants or needs it? In the case of telephone services, when you pick up the handset, do you get a dial tone? I just suffered through five days without my home service (I still have a landline for our home) due to a malfunction to the phone line outside the house. The service (product) was unavailable for five days. My wife and I both found this unacceptable. Availability can also be triangulated (remember, I warned about going too deep)—in this case, total outages, partial outages, and degradation of service are three viable measures.

Speed is one of the most powerful of the delivery measures, especially in our present society, even the global society—we all want things faster. Patience is mostly a lost virtue. So in my project, we measured speed to resolve,