Pizza Hut Found a Root Cause?
No, this is not about the root cause of mediocre “pizza.” I got an email from Pizza Hut, which is strange, since I can’t remember the last time I’ve ordered anything from them. It read: You may have received an…
Tag Customer Focus
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Adventures in Customer Service, Looking for "Lean Solutions"
I was a big fan of the book Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together, but I’m not sure how much of an impact it’s had on the business world. There are still far too…
Seth Godin sounds like Lean Solutions
Seth’s Blog: Learning from frustration Once again, Seth Godin intersects with the concepts of the book Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together. Seth writes about the Lean Solutions principle of not wasting the customer’s…
Laughable Customer "Service"
I know this falls squarely into the “must be a nice life if this is what you have to complain about” category, but I’ll share this anyway. As I prepared to go to the UK for work for 17 days,…
The USPS Should Error Proof This
Express Mail: USPS Says Guaranteed Overnight Isn’t Guaranteed. What? Saw this post on The Consumerist blog about how the United States Postal Service does NOT guarantee overnight delivery of “guaranteed” overnight documents…. IF you place the package in a drop…
United Adds $25 Fee for 2nd Bag
Yahoo News Story By Mike R. Lopez: I saw this story about United Airlines charging customers to check a SECOND bag. Not the fifth or sixth bag, but NUMBER TWO! This reminded me of a training slide that we have…
Amazon & Putting Customers First
Put Buyers First? What a Concept – New York Times I’m a huge fan of Amazon (AMZN), having first ordered a “required pre-reading” book from them in March 1997, before I went to grad school. I’ve hardly had anything go…
A Very Non-Lean ER Experience
Thanks to a Lean Blog reader, Matt, for sending this first-hand account. I’m sorry he (and his wife) had to go through this experience. This is posted with his permission. I’ll buck convention a bit and put my comments in…
Appointments and Wasting the Customer’s Time
No, I’m not complaining about the old “4 hour window” for service appointments. I ran into a new type of waste this morning. I had a plumber appointment, with a 10 to 12 noon window (which I am OK with).…
Customer Focus?
Here’s some not-so-interesting news that I believe indicates not being focused on the customer and the subsequent focus on waste elimination. Harley-Davidson is changing their ticker symbol on Wall Street from HDI to HOG. Read the press release here. How…
Can You Ignore Your Customers For a Week?
Since I’ve been moving into “lean healthcare” consulting, I am joining one of the healthcare management societies, analogous to an APICS type organization, I suppose. I’ll leave this group un-named. As I was poking around their website, I clicked on…
