Assignment
Please before you understand that this bid requires a forum post along with 3 forum post responses below, both must be done. The budget is what it is posted, please do not try to raise the price, either you will do it or the next person will.
Annotate two points of interest from your readings. Your initial post should be at least 250 words. Please respond to at least 3 other students. Responses should be a minimum of 100 words and can include direct questions.
Note: Please bear in mind throughout the course the "theoretical" position you hold within the organization is that of a Program or Contract Manager as you make your recommendations.
Purpose of this assignment:
Explain how to promote customer satisfaction. You can accomplish this week's forum by identifying opportunities and issues and problems when revising and consolidating requirements from multiple customers.
Links to get you started:
Mastering government contracts located at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeVjluEeU9M
Starting a Navy Seal government contract located at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tkabOCBmsw
Response question 1
Well let me take a stab at this. When I think of customer satisfaction I think of the motto "The Customer is always Right". Which is not always true but that seemed to be the slogan of one of the previous businesses that I worked at. Before you can think about satisfying the customer you have to fully understand who your customer is. It is my opinion that as a program/ contract manager you have two customers. The first being the company that you are hiring to perform the service or provide the product for your company. Then you also have the other clients which is the company that you work for. I say that they are both clients because they both want something from you and in the end they both want to come out feeling like the won. The relationship between contracting offices and their customers represent a link that affects the successful completion of missions. "Our customers rely on our responsiveness and effectiveness to get the best supply or service for their buck," said Ulli Powell, contracting officer, 409th CSB Theater Contracting Center. "We support many military missions and if we don't provide the best customer service for them and work hand--in hand with them, it could affect their missions and their well-being" ("Contracting and customers work hand in hand for mission success | Article | The United States Army," n.d.). Basically, as a contracting officer we have to provide good customer service and stay on top of or work be personable, make sure we are getting everything, and meeting everyone's needs. There is more to just getting the contract awarded you also have to follow up and maintain the contract. If it is a larger contract then you may have to manage for multiple years.
Response question 2
Like anything when we go to the store to buy something or go out to eat many times, we are asked to fill out a survey on how the service was. When promoting customer feedback, there are a couple of different ways to pursue. In the interview with Jeff Gonzalez, he explained one of the strategies that he used was to ask the customer what they wanted out of his program. That would then allow him to let them know if he could perform that task or if he could suggest something else. Another item that he used to help with promoting customer satisfaction was using a blog. In the blog, it allowed him to interact with customers to find out what they liked or what could have been changed in the training that is provided.
As a contractor working for the government and training students, we kind of does the same thing. Instead of doing a blog we do an end of course critique that is given to each student. The student is required to fill it out to let us know what their thoughts are about the training. It will have questions such is there anything in the training that needs to be changed or added. The end of course critiques is then given to our supervisor to look over for to see if any changes need to be made. A government representative that we are contracted through can also look at them to ensure we are performing the tasks according to the contract.