Category Archives: Customer focus

It Just Works

Posted on January 2, 2008 by John Hunter

Does Your Product Or Service “Just Work”? By Jim Kukral That’s it. It’s the highest compliment you can get. “It just works” is a very powerful phrase in this day and age There is truth to that statement. I think largely due to how bad so many products are – that they don’t actually work. The Kano model of customer satisfaction is an excellent way to view customer expectations. The Kano model states that you have expected quality – it … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Quality tools | 2 Comments

Good Customer Focus Idea for Banks

Posted on November 8, 2007 by John Hunter

Why Your Bank Needs a Free Coin-Counting Machine But this overall strategy also included a Trojan horse, and that Trojan horse was the bank’s Penny Arcade. If you walk into most Commerce branches, you’ll see a machine or two that will count buckets of loose change. Unlike the Coinstar machines that you might find at supermarkets, Penny Arcades don’t take a cut of your change as a fee if you want plain cash in exchange for your coins. Instead, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management

Change for Your Customer

Posted on October 4, 2007 by John Hunter

Lets say you buy a some ice cream. You get your wonderful ice cream cone from the employee and they point you to a small metal dish to pick up the coins you should recieve as change (the currency is handed to the customer by the employee). A fair number of stores in the USA do this (the change is automatically put in the dish – essentially by the cash register). It is a small thing but it seems to … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Psychology

Tesco in the USA

Posted on August 22, 2007 by John Hunter

Tesco is opening Fresh and Easy stores in the USA: starting with Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix and Las Vegas. Tesco is the third largest retailer in the world and well known for using lean management methods. I added Tesco to my long term stock picks last year (and Warren Buffett owns about $2 billion dollars worth, too). Their recent press release offers hope for Tesco operating with lean thinking in the USA: “No where is our approach to serving … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Lean thinking, Management, Respect, Systems thinking | 1 Comment

Google Video Customer Service

Posted on August 21, 2007 by John Hunter

Google Video sold digital videos that were controlled by Digital Rights Management DRM (so the purchaser didn’t buy something they bought the right to view the digital media according to a set of constraints. I, and many others find these DRM deals a bad deal for customers. I think Google realized that DRM made their Google Video a bad business (though maybe they decided it was a bad business for other reasons). Well Google’s original method of existing the business … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Google, IT, Management | 1 Comment

More Bad Customer Service Examples :-(

Posted on August 19, 2007 by John Hunter

It is sad to see so many examples of bad customer service. I wish enough companies would adopt management improvement principles so that at least I could avoid dealing with the others altogether. Here are 2 more bad examples from the Washington post today. Cellphone Contracts – Hard to Get off the Hook Fed up with dropped calls and a string of defective cellphones, Corey Taylor said he became irate when he learned he’d have to pay $175 to get … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Lean thinking, Management, Public Sector | 2 Comments

Providing Customer Service – Web Hosting

Posted on August 16, 2007 by John Hunter

Web Hosting how to: Save your server and customer when digg/reddit/slashdot effect hits his/her website One of your customers gets lucky – a huge burst of traffic hits his website. If you don’t do something quickly, your server will go down pretty soon. What’s your call? “Suspend website, of course”. WRONG! … Instead, consider other ways to solve this problem. I will share one method with you, we were successfully using it when I was working in one web hosting … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management, Systems thinking

iPhone + AT&T = Yikes

Posted on July 30, 2007 by John Hunter

What a surprise – lousy customer service from a cell phone company. What a shame that it is no surprise at all. Don’t they have tons of MBAs with 6 figure salaries? They do have a CEO paid over $31 million last year. It is so frustrating that even basic stuff is so poorly done, so often and for so long. iPhone+AT&T Bill=Uh-Oh: It’s a staggeringly, hatefully complex document, designed by some Monty Pythoneseque committee in charge of consumer confusion. … Continue reading →

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

Dell Providing Computers Without Bloatware

Posted on July 11, 2007 by John Hunter

The Art Of Listening: Dell Converts Customer Requests Into Exclusive Vostro Brand For Small Business Dell today extended its commitment to customers with a new brand of notebook and desktop computers designed for small businesses. The Vostro branded products feature no trialware and simple to use tools that address top-of-mind problems such as data back-up, PC performance and health, and specialized networking support for customers without dedicated IT staff. A good step (if quite late) on this issue we addressed … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management

Good Customer Service Example

Posted on July 9, 2007 by John Hunter

IRA Toyota – Milford; Great Service [the broken link was removed] I was pleasantly surprised to find a “Service wizard” available. You create an account, specify the standard details about the car (make, model, year, mileage). If you add the VIN, they will be able to provide and maintain additional details. The slickest part of the wizard was the capability to pick a service and schedule a date. Depending upon what service you picked, the calendar changed. This wasn’t any … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, IT, Management, Quality tools, Systems thinking | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Focus on Customers and Employees

Posted on July 5, 2007 by John Hunter

As I have stated I believe it is the purpose of organization to serve many stakeholders (customer, employees, stockholders, community…). Thankfully some companies agree: Compensation at Whole Foods – Starbucks: Respect for Workers – Google: Ten Golden Rules – Amazon Innovation. Here is another example – How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart: But the Pièce De Résistance, the item he most wanted to crow about, was Costco’s private-label pinpoint cotton dress shirts. “Look, these are just $12.99,” he said, while lifting … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Standard Prepaid Cell Phone Policy

Posted on June 21, 2007 by John Hunter

I ran across a specific example of standard policy that I found amusing (related to the post earlier today on Why Isn’t Work Standard). Like the authors, I can’t really see a reason for why you would want a policy that no more than two prepaid cell phones can be purchased. But if it is important, couldn’t you design a much better system to assure this policy was followed. And, at the very least, let customers hear your reasoning (so … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Process improvement, Respect | 1 Comment

Innovation Thinking with Christensen

Posted on June 16, 2007 by John Hunter

In my opinion Clayton Christensen offers truly insightful ideas on innovation and management. He presents the rare management advice that is not only good but also new – an incredibly rare combination. The current issue of Business Week includes an interview with him: Clayton Christensen’s Innovation Brain: Yes. The problem is when you say “listen to your customers,” your customers are only going to lead you in a direction that they want to go in. Generally, that will never lead … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Innovation, Management, Management Articles | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Craigslist’s Ongoing Success Story

Posted on May 16, 2007 by John Hunter

Craigslist is a great web site focused largely on local connections and local ads (jobs, housing, classifieds…). It is in top 10 sites for the amount of traffic and a total staff of 24 people. eBay bought 25% of the company a few years ago but Craiglist retains a very pure customer focus. Craigslist’s Ongoing Success Story [the broken link was removed]: We don’t even look at what other companies are doing. We’re not setting out to conquer the world … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Innovation, IT, Management | Tagged

Google Customer Service

Posted on May 14, 2007 by John Hunter

Google and Ice: A service story: “Ice.com has been very vocal with its criticism. It’s a classic case of a dissatisfied customer. So from a PR dimension this was a problem for Google.” … “We got a call from Google in February asking us what they could do to help us,” Gniwisch said. He said Google put together a team of people who flew to Ice.com’s headquarters in Montreal. “We were also on the phone with them two to three … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Google, Management | 1 Comment

Experiment and Learn

Posted on March 18, 2007 by John Hunter

Experimenting with milkshakes? I have been on a mission to convince firms to do simple experiments that will give them feedback regarding the decisions that they make. Just as with people (as Anders Ericsson studies), firms cannot learn with feedback. It turns out, however, that it is not easy for people in companies to see the wisdom in experiments. Experiments are useful and underused. PDSA and design of experiments are two concepts that aid in experimenting successfully. Related: Google: Experiment … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Design of Experiments, Management, Quality tools | Tagged , ,