Tag Archives: bad customer service

Add Constraints to Processes Carefully

Posted on November 23, 2016 by John Hunter

Take great care in adding constraints to processes to avoid doing so needlessly. Online you will frequently find forms that have required fields that needn’t be. Certainly if you were designing with focus on what is best for customers those … Continue reading →

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Support Theatre

Posted on June 21, 2016 by John Hunter

Support theatre provides the appearance of supporting customers when in fact it is just treating customers poorly based on a management system that disrespects customers. It is a similar idea to security theatre that has become so popular for government … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Fun, Management | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Practicing Mistake-Promoting Instead of Mistake-Proofing at Apple

Posted on June 5, 2014 by John Hunter

Mistake proofing is a wonderful management concept. Design systems not just to be effective when everything goes right but designing them so mistakes are prevented. I have had several bad customer experiences in the short time I have had my … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Bad Weather is Part of the Transportation System

Posted on January 6, 2014 by John Hunter

The job of managers is to create a robust system that delivers value to customers. A system that fails constantly (fails during the continual variation the system faces) is a failed system. Bad weather is part of the variation airlines … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Simple Customer Care: Communicate

Posted on July 17, 2012 by John Hunter

Some management issues are hard. You are often balancing priorities. Sometimes though it is extremely simple: either you have concern for customers and take actions to back that up or you have some concern but don’t do anything about it. … Continue reading →

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

Technical Non-Support

Posted on August 12, 2010 by John Hunter

A bit of fun from Dilbert. I have had the exact experience Dilbert does of tech support refusing to think about the actual symptoms of the problem and insisting on following some script and wasting my time – repeatedly. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Fun, webcast | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Trust Your Staff to Make Decisions

Posted on June 22, 2010 by John Hunter

The failure to give your organization the flexibility to serve customers is a big mistake. Many companies make this mistake. Often the basic problem is managers don’t trust that their systems to hire and develop people that will make good … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Respect, Software Development | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Southwest Not Delta or United

Posted on June 14, 2010 by John Hunter

One of the posts highlighted in the last post was one example of how Southwest behaves. It wasn’t a one time thing. It was a common result of the system Southwest has in place where they treat customers like human … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Worse Hotel Service the More You Pay

Posted on January 2, 2010 by John Hunter

The more you pay for your hotel room the more likely they will charge to provide decent WiFi in your room. Whether a company tries to rip you off with exorbitant prices, or lousy service, is just a function of … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Lean thinking, Management | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Credit Card Company Tries Providing Value

Posted on September 23, 2009 by John Hunter

Most credit card issues seem to use business models based on tricking customers into paying high fees. PartnersFirst is focusing on providing value to customers. A Different Kind of Credit-Card Company PartnersFirst is a different kind of credit-card company. Started … Continue reading →

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