How To Improve Quality Without Going Broke Implementing LEAN: Deal With Issues Once, on First Contact
In the kick-off blog post for our month-long focus on Quality, you learned how to improve Quality by addressing the 5 categories of issues that cause 80% of the unnecessary costs to serve that are hidden in your business. These same 5 categories negatively impact your customers’ perception of your Quality standards, and yet they’re easy to fix. Let’s improve Quality overall, free up some time in your day, and boost your bottom line with an easy solution that you’ve probably experienced, but may not have implemented in your business.
Clearly, preventing defects and errors from happening in the first place minimizes the waste and resources required to deliver your product or service. However, to improve Quality, it’s not enough to provide Functional Quality, because that doesn’t create competitive advantage. You want to layer in Experiential Quality. I call that the “Don’t Just Oil the Tinman, Make Him Sing and Dance” tactic!
Oil Your Tinman By Resolving on First Contact
When Dorothy initially found the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, he was rusted solid, unable to move and not of much help to anyone. Oil transformed him from being creaky into the singing, dancing Tinman we all enjoyed so much. Over time, corrosion and creakiness creeps into every business, and to improve Quality, a bit of oil at the front end goes a long way to avoid issues escalating.
When you think of the customer service interactions you have with various suppliers in your personal and business life, how many of them are on the creaky and rusted end of the scale versus the well-oiled end? How do YOUR customers perceive your Quality and your customer service organization when things go awry?
Customers know that things will go wrong occasionally. All they really expect is for you to make it right without a lot of hassle and run-around. Most organizations treat their customers as salmon swimming upstream by putting resources with the ability to say “yes” or fix the problem as far away as possible from where things have gone awry. And if you’ve ever seen salmon spawning, you know how bruised and battered those salmon look after fighting their way upstream. Customers get exhausted from having to tell their story multiple times while their issue is repeatedly moved up the ladder without resolution. They get disappointed by the delays in making it right and often are angry because they have better things to do with their time. They’re left with a bad taste in their mouth when the resolution is inadequate or seems unfair.
Is that the Quality Experience you’re really trying to create? Of course not!
Case Study
If you fly Air Canada, you’ll already know that their unspoken Customer Experience Statement is “we’re not happy until you’re unhappy” (what would YOUR customers say your Experience Statement is?) and they certainly proved it once again on a short hop I took between Toronto and Cincinnati.
Experience Shortfall #1 – Say NO, Instead of YES: I arrived at the airport at about 1pm for my 8:35pm flight, due to some schedule changes at a conference I was at and requested a switch to their 5:15 flight, which in the old days would have been handled quickly, easily, and with a smile. The answer? Nope, unless I paid a change fee that was more than ½ the cost of the flight. I’d already paid change fees for another Air Canada flight on this same trip, and asked if that could be taken into account. Nope. C’mon folks, the “cash grab” that the airlines are doing with every little thing does not feel like good value and creates a bad taste every time.
What are you doing in your company that’s leaving customers feeling cheated rather than delighted?
Experience Shortfall #2 – Create Uncertainty: By 8:15, my 8:35 flight still hadn’t been called, so I walked over to the desk and asked the service attendant for an update. As she gathered her things to leave, she looked back over her shoulder and said “I have no idea, I work Newark”. We were kept in the dark for quite some time with no explanation, just repeated announcements that the flight was delayed to 9… to 9:30… to 10:30 when we finally left. There was only the most cursory apology from the flight crew during their regular take-off announcements and we were not even offered water on the flight, let alone the complimentary cocktail that used to go along with delayed flights in the old days. Another bad taste left behind.
What are you doing in your company that’s leaving customers feeling like they’re in the dark or unappreciated?
The Takeaway: Create a positive experience on first contact
Perhaps I should have ponied up for the earlier flight instead of letting my Scottish thrift and stubborn Taurus side take over. However, Air Canada’s Customer Experience statement needs to be something along the lines of “get the customer where they’re going as quickly and pleasantly as possible, at fair prices that reflect value”. They’re a long way from that, and they’re leaving themselves vulnerable to upstart airlines like Porter, who “get it”.
Have you crafted a Customer Experience Statement that sets you apart from your industry? If so, are your people empowered to consistently live up to it?
Improve Quality with the first contact approach
The potential time and cost savings of the “on first contact” approach are substantial. Research has repeatedly shown that front-line staff who are empowered to address customer issues completely the first time, actually give away less in concessions than more senior staff do after receiving an escalated issue.
Furthermore, it’s estimated that the average CEO spends over 20% of their time somehow involved in resolving customer issues that have been escalated to his or her level. What a waste! That is not where the fun is in your business.
If you’re like many companies, you end up resolving most of your customer service issues … eventually. Instead, improve Quality by making the commitment to resolve issues on first contact. Simply let your people on the front lines say “yes” as long as the solution is consistent with your intentions.
Access 3 complimentary videos for helpful how-to’s, and stay tuned for next week’s solution in plain sight: how to improve Quality by using a root cause approach to get the sludge out of your systems for good.
#1 Bestselling Author, International Speaker, and Accelerator Anne C. Graham is on a mission to help 5 million business leaders and their teams double their profit per employee – or more – in less than one year, in less time per week than they’re spending on email per day. Her new book Profit in Plain Sight includes the 5-step proactive P.R.O.F.I+T Plan to do it. Connect with Anne on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
