Category Archives: Customer focus

Innovation Examples

Posted on January 11, 2007 by John Hunter

Two examples from 37signals: first, Pioneer Theater. Good idea. I am stretching to call it innovation, today, maybe 5 years ago it was. Today I think any reasonably sized theater should have something like this in place. The interface is … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Innovation, IT, Management | Tagged Innovation | 2 Comments

The Psychology of Too Much Choice

Posted on January 7, 2007 by John Hunter

An understanding of psychology is one of the four components of Dr. Deming’s management system. This understanding lies behind practices such as: driving out fear, respect for people and eliminating slogans. In an organization all the components (practices, processes, investments, … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Management, Psychology | Tagged Psychology | 2 Comments

Change Your Name

Posted on December 28, 2006 by John Hunter

Best Buy Asks Man To Change Name [the broken link was removed]: Turns out if your last name is less than three letters, the online sign-up isn’t an option for you. Companies often put up barriers for no reason, then … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management, Software Development | Tagged bad customer service, bad usability, IT, management, usability | 6 Comments

Customer Un-focus

Posted on December 28, 2006 by John Hunter

Counties caught in conundrum: getting Amish to take food stamps [the broken link was removed] by John Horton Accepting public assistance is verboten within the Amish culture. It simply is not done. But Taylor is under orders to at least … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Data, Management, Public Sector | Tagged Customer focus, Data, in-process measures, Public Sector | 2 Comments

Poor Service – Industry Standard?

Posted on December 27, 2006 by John Hunter

More Trouble Canceling HP Orders by Bob Sutton: I wrote a post a couple months ago about how difficult it was to cancel an order I had JUST made for an HP computer, and how when I complained on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management | Comments Off

Management Improvement Carnival #1

Posted on December 7, 2006 by John Hunter

There have been a number of great post recently about management improvement: Amazon’s Long Public Haul by Kevin Meyer – “Amazon has now been around a while and has a loyal following. Their culture is apparently deep, at least for … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Customer focus, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management | 5 Comments

Ritz Carlton and Home Depot

Posted on December 6, 2006 by John Hunter

Don MacAskill writes of his great service from Ritz-Carlton and horrible service from Home Depot. Neither result is surprising, see related posts below… Ritz-Carlton’s motto is “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” And they actually turn those words into reality… Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged aim, culture, Customer focus, managing people, organization as a system | 3 Comments

What Could we do Better?

Posted on November 29, 2006 by John Hunter

At the Hunter Conference, years ago, a speaker (I forget who) talked about how to get useful feedback. He discussed how asking “how is everything” normally will get the response: “fine” (which is often that is exactly what the staff … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Popular, Quality tools | Tagged continual improvement, curiouscat, Customer focus, Deming, Process improvement, Psychology | 9 Comments

European Blackout: Human Error-Not

Posted on November 18, 2006 by John Hunter

German utility E.On says major European blackout was caused by human error [the broken link was removed] Germany utility E.On AG said Wednesday that a European-wide blackout earlier this month that left millions without power was the result of human … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Lean thinking, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Respect | Tagged blame, curiouscat, Customer focus, mistake-proofing, Process improvement, process thinking, Systems thinking | 2 Comments

Sub-Optimize

Posted on November 15, 2006 by John Hunter

From the “you call this agile?” department by Joel Spolsky: Yes, context switching is painful. Yes, you need to take into account the costs of context switching when you interrupt someone’s work. But every decision has pros and cons and … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management, Software Development, Systems thinking | 2 Comments