Tag: Customer Satisfaction

House of Quality? No, this is often referred to as a House of Pain because of the effort needed to complete one. Let’s see if we are just being overly pessimistic. 

Voice of the customer, often qualitative in nature, may appear simple. But identifying the right customers and their needs, in my opinion, is exceedingly challenging in practice.

In light of our overall desire to standardize processes in order to reduce variation, I’ve seen a fair share of projects in the service or transactional spaces where one of the recommendations is to script key parts of the customer interaction. While this may make sense to help shorten a call or standardize the interaction, […]

The biomedical world – which includes the equipment used in hospitals, as well as physicians’ and dentists’ offices – is ripe for Six Sigma use. As a senior biomedical engineer and a Black Belt, I embarked on a Six Sigma journey that would provide top-quality service at reduced costs to my customers. As part of […]

After doing Continuous Improvement for some time, I started noticing improvement opportunities everywhere, in everyday life. Here is a recent example. With holidays and vacation days coming last December, I was going to get my basement organized and needed some shelf space. After reading some positive product reviews online, I bought two 48″ (wide) heavy […]

Last week GlaxoSmithKline agreed to pay $750 million to settle charges related to bad products. In their press release, they stated: “We regret that we operated the Cidra facility in a manner that was inconsistent with current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) requirements and with GSK’s commitment to manufacturing quality. GSK worked hard to resolve fully […]

I was reading the USAirways in-flight magazine while flying from Philadelphia to Boston the other day. The issue’s Must Read is anexcerpt from Chapter 1 of the book Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us by Emily Yellin. I thought it was interesting as it is filled with horror stories of how Customer Service […]

I was shopping at IKEA and found a bureau on sale for $30. The display model looked well-made with nice materials and finish. However, as expected, IKEA furniture comes in a box assembly required. No problem as I have plenty of experience. The assembly process took a number of steps: Find a suitable area large […]

We have all heard a lot about “customer focus” in our work. But what does it really mean? How much has “bringing customer focus to the organization” helped you change the culture and improve the long-term performance of the business? What has been your customer’s response to it? Lean Six Sigma has brought more concrete […]

This was handed out at an all-hands today – not my words, and a great reminder of why we do what we do. I am your customer. Satisfy my wants, add personal attention and a friendly touch, and I will become a walking advertisement for your products and services. Ignore my wants, show carelessness, inattention […]

I am personally gratefully for the Toyota quality.

Having recently posted my 100th blog, I thought it would be worthwhile to share my list of 100 reasons why companies should embrace Six Sigma.

Save time for your customers by enabling efficient transactions and watch your WOW-O-Meter go off scale.

As families struggle to make ends meet, the value provided for the dollar spent is more important than ever. What should we do? Panic? No – we don’t need to stinkin’ panic. . . we got Six Sigma!

Consistently delighting customers and providing exceptional handling of issues and errors using the R.A.P.I.D. methodology are two ways to create customer W.O.W. (What’s Needed – On Time – With Value).

Maintaining a positive interaction while fixing a problem or concern can sometimes turn a customer OW to WOW.

As I was getting into the cab outside Sheraton Saigon, the concierge guy handed me a small squarepiece of paper. “What’s this for?”, I asked, without really looking at what was handed to me. “In case you havetrouble with the driver sir.”, the concierge guy answered. It was a small feedback form allowing hotel guests […]

If your customers rate you a “7” on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the best), do your customer ratings range from 6 to 8 or do they range from 4 to 10? What would you do with this information?

If you are providing your Customers with a W.O.W. experience, you will know it. If you are not, you will know it as well.

Webster’s defines delight as “extreme satisfaction.” It is what gets your customers to say WOW!

Customer complaints, appropriately captured and analyzed, can provide useful insight about process defects.

I often find real world examples of process “improvements” staring me blatantly in the face. For example, I stumbled upon queuing theory in action at the local movie theatre. Queuing theory is the study of how lines (or queues) are formed and dissipate over time. Examples of queues are everywhere: traffic at an intersection, restaurant […]

Last week I spent an evening at the local emergency center with my mom. The experience reminded me of the old saying: “You are only as good as your weakest link.” And here’s why. . . When I walked into the emergency center I was immediately accosted by a huge poster focused on customer service […]

Think about this: when was the last time you told someone about an experience that met your expectations. Perhaps it was an adequate dinner while on the road, or a satisfactory hotel stay. Now think about the last time your expectations either weren’t met at all, or were wildly exceeded. How many people did you […]