Category Archives: Customer focus

Gobbledygook

Posted on August 21, 2008 by John Hunter

How is this for Gobbledygook? Your home banking access code is expired! You must change your access code at this time. Your access code: * may be between 4 and 20 characters in length * must not have been changed within the last 0 days * may not be one of 3 previously used access codes * must not repeat the same character more than 0 times * must not contain 0 characters from previous access code * must contain … Continue reading →

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

Don’t Do What Your Users Say

Posted on August 11, 2008 by John Hunter

In, Don’t do what your users say [the broken link was removed], Hanford Lemoore, provides a nice illustration of why customer focus is important but must be done with care. in UI design it’s important to understand that what a user says and what a user is telling you can be two different things. … I got a good variety of comments back. Constructive thoughts. But I noticed an interesting trend: The most common thing suggested was “Add an undo … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Management, Software Development | Tagged , , ,

Not Exactly Lean Packaging

Posted on July 23, 2008 by John Hunter

HP shatters excessive packaging world record (17 boxes to protect 32 A4 sheets of paper) Stephen said: “Imagine our excitement as we opened it, hoping against hope that it might contain a copy of some c-class virtual connect firmware that actually works.” Sadly not. What the überbox did contain was 16 smaller boxes “which in turn [each] contained (wrapped in foam so they wouldn’t get broken) exactly two sheets of A4 paper” It is hard to imagine what management system … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Lean thinking, Management, Process improvement | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Verizon Provides Lousy Service = Dog Bites Man

Posted on July 3, 2008 by John Hunter

It is obvious a few companies don’t have any ability to provide even just reasonably bad service (for them the goal of decent service is so far away as to not be reasonable). How often do Verizon,

Posted in Customer focus, Management | Tagged , ,

Zipcar Innovation

Posted on June 21, 2008 by John Hunter

Zipcar is an intriguing idea where you rent cars by the hour. The whole process is a significant change from the previous rental model (gas, parking and insurance included). Zipcar makes deals with local governments to secure zipcar parking near public transportation. They also have deals with universities, apartment buildings and businesses all of which provides a new level of easy customer access with cars available in many locations. The internet is used to schedule and provide up to date … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Deming, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management, Systems thinking | 4 Comments

Respect for Employees at Southwest Airlines

Posted on June 12, 2008 by John Hunter

“You have to treat your employees like customers” “We’ve never had layoffs,” he told me the day before the annual meeting, sitting on the couch of the single messiest executive office I’ve ever seen. “We could have made more money if we furloughed people. But we don’t do that. And we honor them constantly. Our people know that if they are sick, we will take care of them. If there are occasions or grief or joy, we will be there … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Management, Psychology, Respect, Systems thinking

Paying New Employees to Quit

Posted on May 25, 2008 by John Hunter

[the video is no longer available] Training new employees and then paying them to quit, sounds pretty bizarre; Zappos is not afraid of doing things differently. Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit – And You Should Too [Harvard broke the link so I removed it – they should pay those responsible (most likely an executive, technical people know better but bad management breaks things) for not maintaining urls to quit]: Zappos sells shoes—lots of them—over the Internet. The company … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Innovation, Management, Respect, webcast | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Why is Customer Service So Bad?

Posted on May 24, 2008 by John Hunter

Why is it? I really don’t know. It drives me crazy though – having to put up with horrible service again and again. Is it possible that only a few people actually care about service? I know I care about it, but given the preference of business to continually provide horrible service it should be that you can just provide plan mediocre service and take their business. Yet these companies providing what seems likes worse and worse service somehow stay … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management | Tagged | 7 Comments

Find Joy and Success in Business

Posted on April 21, 2008 by John Hunter

David Heinemeier Hansson Talk [the broken link has been removed] at Startup School 2008 (Paul Graham‘s Y-combinator school). It is helpful to appreciate the importance of some simple ideas. Working on web focused businesses people often get carried away with the huge potential and sometimes lose touch with reality. While the ideas are more obvious when looking at web related business their is plenty here for many companies (the second half might be more helpful for many). In this talk … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Fun, Innovation, IT, Management, Psychology, Respect, Software Development | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Confusing Customer Focus

Posted on April 10, 2008 by John Hunter

Misuse of the “Customer” Concept “We are told that the airlines are our customers,” FAA inspector Charlambe “Bobby” Boutris said. “But we have a more important customer, the taxpayers” who want government to ensure a safe aviation system. That’s crazy. The FAA is supposed to be serving and protecting the passengers, not the airlines. This is like a supervisor in a workplace treating their employee as a customer… even in a “servant leadership” environment, that’s not right. “Customer focus” is … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Public Sector | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Packaging Improvement

Posted on April 9, 2008 by John Hunter

McDonald’s Branding Makes Food Tastier for Tots Researchers at Stanford University have found that children tend to rate food that is wrapped up in McDonald’s-branded paper as tasting better than the same food wrapped in plain paper — a finding that suggests that even the youngest consumers are heavily influenced by advertising. The new study was released Monday in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. The study had 63 children, aged 3 to 5 years old, tasting five pairs … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Management, Psychology, Science | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Pleasing Customers

Posted on March 10, 2008 by John Hunter

Why is 37signals so arrogant? by Don Norman The Brash Boys at 37signals Will Tell You: Keep it Simple, Stupid. Brash is an understatement. I was quoted in the article because of my article arguing that simplicity is highly overrated: the tasks that we do require tools that match the requirements, and these add complexity. … Yes, they are arrogant — and proud of it: “Arrogant is usually something you hurl at somebody as an insult,” Hansson said. “But when … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Creativity, Customer focus, Management, Psychology, quote, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Toyota’s Commitment

Posted on March 8, 2008 by John Hunter

From Toyota’s blog, Living Up to Our Commitment We’ve received reports that on a small number of model-year 1995 to 2000 Tacomas, excessive corrosion of the frame has caused perforation of the metal. The reason for this, it appears, is that the frames of some of the 813,000 vehicles built during this time-frame may not have adequate corrosion protection. … Because of our oft-stated commitment to standing behind our products, we’re extending the rust-perforation warranty covering these trucks for a … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Customers Get Dissed and Tell

Posted on February 28, 2008 by John Hunter

There are those rare companies where interacting with them is not a dreaded experience: Trader Joe’s, Southwest Airlines, Ritz Carlton, Crutchfield, Cannon, Groovix. There are not many. And even just providing something that just works is seen as a treat. The all too common dis-service, combined with the internet, leads to Consumer Vigilantes: a growing disconnect between the experience companies promise and customers’ perceptions of what they actually get. … A swell of corporate distrust – exacerbated by high executive … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Management, Psychology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

User Happiness with Search Engines

Posted on February 23, 2008 by John Hunter

Awhile back I wrote about why I didn’t think the American Customer Satisfaction Index claim that Yahoo beat Google for customer satisfaction was evidence of a broken indicator. Well here is another indicator, but this time it puts Google clearly in 1st place, while Yahoo has been improving: Search Engines: Intense Competition Drives Better User Experiences In the December 2007 Keynote study, Google makes a clean sweep of first place in all four key index rankings: Overall Customer Experience, Brand … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Google, Management

Poor Service from Amazon

Posted on January 11, 2008 by John Hunter

I like using Amazon, most of the time. But their decision to erect barriers for communication I find extremely annoying. Any time anything goes wrong you might as well be dealing with some organization in the middle of nowhere without phones, any internet connection or even physical mail. I ordered a printer from them a couple weeks ago. Today I get an email that “the following item from your order is not currently available for purchase. This item has been … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Management, Process improvement | 6 Comments