Subir Chowdhury named to The Thinkers 50
The Thinkers 50 - the definitive listing of the world’s top 50 business thinkers - has honored Subir Chowdhury by including him 2011 list. Complete article located here.
McPeeved
I don’t normally complain about customer service. If service is bad, I just don’t tip as well as I normally would, or don’t go back. But recently I have become so irritated by an issue that I have complained twice. And both times I got the same excuse, “…we don’t like it either, but it is corporate policy”. After hearing that excuse for the second time within a couple of months, I was fired-up. I decided I was ready to go on-line and find a number or email address so I could contact the corporate office. It was time I let them know how much their policy is making customers upset. Now, 24 hours later, I am wondering why should [...]
Them’s the Breaks
The Kano Model is a tool commonly used in the product development process to help classify customer wants and needs into one of three main categories. The first category is called Basic Needs. Basic Needs are customer needs that are usually unspoken unless they are violated. These types of needs don’t add to the overall customer satisfaction of the product, but they can take away from the satisfaction level if they are not met. An example of a Basic Need in an automobile is its ability to keep water from entering the inside of the car and getting the driver wet. A car owner never runs over to his neighbor and brags about how well his new car keeps water [...]
A Quality Mindset
Last week Brad Feiler posted a blog on this website about the mindset of an organization and a few days later Mike Westra blogged about how two different customer service representatives addressed the exact same problem, but with different mindsets. These blogs got me thinking about how companies can truly change the mindset of its people. I have found training and implementing tools like those used in Six Sigma, Design for Sigma, TQM, and etc. do improve a company’s bottom line, but to truly get breakthrough results, the mindset of the entire organization must be changed. Transforming the entire organization’s mindset requires changes to business processes inside and outside of engineering, as highlighted by Mike’s customer service reps. LEO customizes [...]
A Tale of Two Phone Calls
Recently my family decided to start a garden in our backyard with some friends of ours. Last fall we sat down and collectively decided what and how much we wanted to grow. Then, each family went on-line and researched the best places to buy the vegetables that we were interested in growing. We both decided that we would order most of our seeds and starter plants from a large national company, figuring that they would be the most reputable. So, when the time came, both of our families called and separately placed our orders. One nice selling feature that drew us to this company is that they would ship us our starter plants at the time when it is appropriate [...]
Be Wrong to Be Right
Wrong is in vogue. A song by Depeche Mode is named “Wrong.” Seth Godin blogged about failure:http://bit.ly/fGNB1kKathryn Schultz presented at a TED Conference about the importance of being wrong. http://bit.ly/gD0kPm Kathryn said being wrong is the source of our creativity. In the Optimize Phase of LEO, we try to be wrong. We test variations of our best design concept from the Enrich Phase. We test the variants we expect to be good. We test other variants we expect to be bad. If the expected good are really bad or if the expected bad are really good – we learn. We even learn if the good are good or the bad are bad in a manner different than what we expected. We [...]
Wishing we could ‘Enrich’ political campaigns
A few weeks ago Obama began his bid for re-election in 2012. Don’t worry; this won’t turn into a political blog… But when I heard this, it got me thinking. I was reminded of the last elections in 2010. I remember telling my wife during campaign/election season that it was tough to figure out how I wanted to vote in most cases because I didn’t hear much from any candidate on why they should get my vote. Instead I heard a lot about why ‘the other guy’ should not get my vote. The reasons why I should not vote for ‘the other guy’ ranged from some that were very reasonable to some that could make you think ‘how-could-this-person-even-be-running-for-office?’ In fact, [...]
Service Quality
Seth Godin hits the nail on the head. http://bit.ly/fD47JR But great service designs require more than designers signing their work. Great service designs require a process. Listen – Observe and understand the customer. Take the time to really understand what the customer wants. Understand the why behind the what. Stop talking. Start listening. Designers must experience their customers first-hand. (No, reading tweets is not first-hand experience!) Empathize with the customer who gets a blast of cold water from the hotel’s shower head. Enrich – Explore and discover the best alternative. Once you have a rock solid, visceral understanding of customer needs, don’t rush to the first concept that comes to mind. Take the time to explore all the concepts. Invent [...]
Power to the People!
While I was pumping my gas the other day, I noticed an advertisement sign sitting on the top of the gas pump. The sign said that if all Americans would keep their tires inflated to the proper pressure, as recommended by the manufacturer, we could collectively save 700 million gallons of gasoline per year. The sign was an advertisement for ExxonMobile tire linersthat are intended to help reduce the amount of air lost through the tire. While I found the concept intriguing, it wasn’t the first thing that popped into my head as I read the sign. There I was, standing outside of my car waiting for the gas to finish pumping. I read the sign and was suddenly motivated to [...]
Service Worthy of a Treat
In today’s world of blogging, there seems to be much more complaining about poor products and services than there is praising good products and services. I think it’s important for us to recognize great service so we can learn from it just as we do with the more commonly discussed examples of poor service. So, here is a recent experience I had. A few months ago my wife and I went overseas for a European/Middle-eastern vacation lasting over two weeks. This meant that leading up to the trip there was a lot to plan for, which for the most part was fun. We researched a lot on the internet and we figured out what we wanted to see and experience [...]