Customer Service

I mentioned in a recent post that it is often helpful to use analogies to help explain and understand business practices. A technical term for this is benchmarking. I ran across a great example of customer service this morning. The following letter was placed inside my morning paper by the delivery person.

"Dear Friends,
Thank you so much for your kindness during this Christmas season. I am overwhelmed by your tips and kind words every year at this time. I must have finally learned to miss the flowers. Seriously, I know some of you wonder why I throw the papers like I do. Please understand that since I took this job three years ago, till this day our bosses instruct us to throw the papers on the grass and not on cement because it will get wet on the cement much quicker than the grass. It took me a while to figure it out but the closer I can get to the house, the less complaints I got. If anyone has a problem with the placement of the paper, please feel free to drop me a line or give me a call and leave a message (he gave us his address and phone number). I will be more than glad to throw it to a more suitable area. These days with high gas prices, it is customers like you that make this job worthwhile."

Speak with Data

In Monday's paper, there was an interesting editorial from Dr. Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson, superintentent of the Charleston County School District. The article summarized the progress made in 2005 and looked forward to 2006.

In one paragraph, Dr. Johnson states, "We are using data to drive the district and the data show things are getting better." If you have lived in this area for a while, you know how much our school system appears in the news. Arguments in school board meetings. Superintendents being fired (we've had three in my time here).

Point is, this is a very emotional subject. If not managed properly, any effort to improve such a system will inevitably result in emotional decisions and heated debate. No improvement will result. No value will be added.

This applies in myriad forums: churches, sports teams, manufacturing plants. People come with different skill levels and brains full of opinions. Couple this will weak leadership, and you'll manage chaos instead of continuous improvement.

So how do you prevent emotional decision making? Easy. Speak with data-whatever direction you go in on your journey to improve the school system or your plan to grow the church or your strategy for improving the team. Each must stem from objective evidence. (data)

First, you must know what to collect. Second, the data must be analyzed. There are a multitude of analysis tools but I like to keep it simple. The seven basic quality tools can serve almost every situation: Checklist, Trend chart, Histogram, Cause and Effect Diagram, Control Chart, Pareto Diagram, and Scatter Plot.

Once the data is analyzed, conclusions are drawn and actions taken. There may be mild debate but the data speaks for itself. Any argument against this approach would be foolish.

This is the right approach to manage any process or system.

Pareto Diagrams and Paynter Charts

A pareto diagram is a graphical technique for helping you focus on the vital few opportunities for improvement. This is great tool for forcing others to get out of the "fire fighting" mode. There may be many things going wrong but if you analyze the data (with a pareto diagram), only a few of the things are causing the majority of the pain.

A paynter chart is a graphical technique for showing the effectiveness of containment and corrective actions. It is nothing but a matrix with defect categories on the vertical axis and a time series on the horizontal axis. When actions are taken for a defect, note the action on the time series. If the action(s) worked, you should see an improvement in the numbers.

Go to my website and look at the graphical techniques template. There are templates for pareto charts and paynter charts. Put numbers in the template and see how the graphs change.

http://www.qualitymindsinc.com

Staying Focused

It is a familiar scene. The end of the day arrives and you feel as if nothing was accomplished. You were a fireman more than a value-adding worker. Your time was spent dousing one fire after another. To some, the stress is overwhelming. To others, it is an adrenaline rush. They will cry about it but secretly can't live without it.

I think most managers understand the reactive nature of business but look for those that can step back and see the big picture. Because at the end of the day, the results must be there. The performance review will be the same. Using "reactive mode" as a reason for non-productivity is not accepted.

You must take time to see the needs for improvement. What must be the focus of your time and resources? Someone in your organization must be painting this picture or you will continue to fail miserably until your customer pulls its business.

The tools are simple: Pick a characteristic that needs to improve. Examples include supplier performance, customer returns, and scrap. If your suppliers aren't performing, you suffer the consequences. You spend your time sorting their product and answering to management. Somehow, some way, you need to get ahead of this.

Trend the characteristic's performance over time to see patterns of variation. Next, perform a pareto analysis of the characteristic to hone in on the vital few issues. Develop action plans for the vital few. Use a Paynter chart to show the effectiveness of actions.

Discipline yourself to use this approach and I promise you will eventaully get out of the firefighting business.

Taking Ownership

What drives you crazy at work? If you performed a pareto analysis of the things that unnerve you, what would the top five look like?

Somewhere in my top five would be the failure of people to take ownership of responsibilities and their actions. Such a culture breeds finger pointing and is not conducive to creating and maintaining a world class organization. The symptoms are numerous quality problems, disgruntled employess, and dissastified customers.

If something belongs to you, own it! If you feel like it doesn't belong to you, politely push back but do so through your manager. If you don't truly own it, you may need to temporarily until the system can be fixed (by management). Now, if your manager does not support you, this is another story.

If you make a mistake, admit it and move on! Don't worry about the consequences. Figure out why the mistake was made and take actions to prevent future occurrences.

I read this quote in today's paper. It is a statement about taking responsibility: "Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air, and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower was prepared to issue this note if the invasion of Normany (D-Day) failed. Obviously, it did not and the note was never published.