Outputs or outcomes? And what the answer says about your organisation.

I heard a story about a restaurant recently.  The owners worked hard to develop a reputation and the food, the atmosphere and the overall experience of the place made it something special.  It's growing reputation meant that it got busier week by week, so much so that the number of meals served on a typical Friday night increased to an average of 94 from 60 just a couple of months previously.

The owners congratulated themselves on being able to scale up and deliver this increase without hiring a new chef and more waiters / waitresses.  And on the face of it that seemed to be the right thing to do.  After all, wasn't getting the food out th emost important thing?  Everything appeared rosy - and yet they missed the fact that customers felt the quality of their experience deteriorated.  Probably at a rate proportionate to the increased in meals served.  Unfortunately some of them soon decided "it's not as good as it used to be" and ate at other restaurants instead.

This is a good example of an organisation focusing on outputs (meals served) rather than customer outcomes (overall quality of the eating out experience).  Individual customers weren't interested in the total number of meals served, just the quality of their meal and their overall experience of their evening out.  That was their desired outcome. 

When the restaurant first opened the owners just knew that the experience customers had was what would make the business a success and their focus on the outcome was what caused it to gain its reputation and grow.

Strange then that they should take their eye off outcomes and focus instead on the output.  But it's often what happens when businesses, or more specifically the people who work in businesses, are under pressure to deliver more or deliver the same with less.  They regress to an outputs (internal) perspective and lose their outcomes (external) focus.  Businesses who focus on outputs rather than outcomes are always less customer focused and deliver a poorer customer experience.

It's a very, very common mistake.  Call Centres focus on calls answered rather than the quality of how customer queries have been answered and problems resolved.   Mortgage Lenders report on the value of completions instead of customers who have been helped to move or improve.  Surgeons track finished consultant episodes, retailers measure units sold, hotels focus on rooms occupied.  The list goes on.

There's nothing wrong with measuring outputs of course but not at the expense of outcomes.  Great businesses place outcomes first and their output measures, whilst useful measures of internal efficiency, are subordinate.  What takes precedence in your business - outputs or outcomes?

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