Conference Proceedings 26 - Transportation Research Board

TRANSPORTATION DATA AND PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT 81the future. If the product is work zone safety, thenthe customer is the construction worker, and the desiredoutcome is a safer workplace.Another aspect to providing a customer with aproduct is the experience itself. This is the interactionbetween the provider and the customer before, during,and after delivery of the product. The commonphrase used to describe this aspect is customer service.A customer’s perceptions of the experience (i.e.,of obtaining and using a product) are as importantas their perceptions of the product itself.When one is measuring products, the intent is todetermine the customers’ perceptions of the attributesof the products themselves. When one is measuringthe experience, the focus is on customers’ perceptionsof the people they deal with, their attitudes, professionalism,willingness to listen, knowledge of theproduct, understanding of the customers’ concerns,and other characteristics. As an organization determineswhat to measure, keeping these differences inperspective will help determine the role that customerinput should have in your primary system performancemeasures.What Is Needed from the Customer?What are you measuring and why? Before you startto develop your questions for customers, determineand be able to explain specifically what you hope toaccomplish with the information you obtain. Thisknowledge will keep you focused as you develop andwork through the process of developing a questionnaire,survey, or other customer-input device. If thepurpose is unclear, inadequately developed, or notspecifically related to the corporate measure, you willstruggle to come up with questions that truly addressthe concerns that matter the most to your performancemeasure.Consider the following questions as you begin todevelop customer measures of performance:• What is the primary issue or problem that wewant to address?• What will the results help us do differently?• How would this information aid in the decisionmakingprocess?• What specific actions do we intend to take afterwe have the results?• Why do we need this information now?As with all performance measures, differentiate outputmeasures from outcome measures. Also if yourproduct requires you to take something from a customerand work on transforming it into somethingelse before you give it back, be sure to consider inputmeasures.Output measures are evident as soon as you havedelivered the product. Outcome measures might notbe evident until months after product delivery. Althoughoutput measures are usually easy to define,developing good outcome measures can be difficult.Outcomes in organizations often can be attributed toseveral different activities. It can be challenging todetermine what portion of a customer’s outcome isbased on your product and what portion is based onproducts the customer received from other providers.One potential risk that must be considered as youanalyze your information needs is that your customersmay not be familiar with your product or service. Forexample, consider the public’s perception of pavementcondition. If people are unaware of the department’spolicy or are aware of it but cannot relate to the engineeringjargon nor understand the cost of differentimprovements, then it will be difficult for them to respondto questions about the policy. In these cases,separate questions may be needed to determine customers’awareness and understanding of the policy beforedetermining satisfaction and using it to influenceinvestment decisions.Customer information is critical to any completeperformance measurement system, but getting informedinput from customers can be difficult. It mustbe done deliberately and with an understanding of thecustomers themselves.DATA IDENTIFICATION AND USECollecting the right data depends on understandingwhat is to be measured, why it is being measured,and who will use the data.What to MeasureData often are collected for a performance measurewithout truly understanding what is to be measured.For example, many agencies have annual goals forimproving pavement ride. To measure this goal, theagency might measure the number of miles that fallbelow an established ride standard (i.e., the numberof ‘‘bad’’ miles). However, if resources were dedicatedto meeting this goal and a program was implementedthat should have met the goal but the goal remainedout of reach, would the single program level measurebe useful? In this case, the simple measure might notbe useful because it would not allow the situation tobe well understood.