Showing posts with label process improvement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label process improvement. Show all posts

Jun 29, 2011

Appraisal is Too Late - Teri's Tip #48

The system most businesses use to check their work is after-the-fact, after the output has been completed or delivered.  That's too late!  When the customer finds the error and complains, it costs you 10 times more than if you had caught the error at the beginning of your process.

Prevention means taking the time upfront to look at your process and test to see if it is capable of delivering the promised output every time.  This could be a meal, a tooth cleaning, an answered customer phone call, a paint job, etc.  Prevention on a new process means brainstorming what are all the opportunities for error that could occur in the process and how could they be avoided.

Appraisal is just a fix and requires rework that costs time and money.  Prevention pays in the long-term!

www.retainloyalcustomers.com
Teri Yanovitch is a leading speaker, trainer and consultant on creating a culture of customer service within an organization. Her firm T.A.Yanovitch, Inc. provides a clear and proven process on how to create this culture of service and helps guide organizations to ensure their success. Through her presentations, workshops and training, Teri has assisted organizations from all industries to differentiate their business through the competitive edge of the customer experience.

Contact Teri at ty@retainloyalcustomers.com
Her highly acclaimed book Unleashing Excellence – The Complete Guide to " Ultimate Customer Service" has sold over 32,000 books and is recognized as a practical, hands-on approach to providing a seamless extraordinary service experience to retain customers and employees. Contact Teri at
ty@retainloyalcustomers.com for your next speaking engagement or for a copy of her book.

Mar 22, 2011

Deadline Dodgers - Teri's Tip #39

There are some people who consistently never complete their tasks on-time.  This holds everyone else up and creates discontent among those who are waiting for the work of this person in order to do their job.  Management's action must be to determine why the person is chronically missing the deadlines:  is it lack of urgency and giving it their all or are they overburdened and incapable of completing all their assigned work?

Quality is conformance to requirements and deadlines are a requirement.  Action:  Sit down with the deadline dodger, together set realistic requirements, get agreement to the requirements, make sure the process is capable of meeting the requirements, and then hold the individual accountable. 

Excellent customer service starts with Quality.

http://www.retainloyalcustomers.com/

Teri Yanovitch is a leading speaker, trainer and consultant on creating a culture of customer service within an organization. Her firm T.A.Yanovitch, Inc. provides a clear and proven process on how to create this culture of service and helps guide organizations to ensure their success. Through her presentations, workshops and training, Teri has assisted organizations from all industries to differentiate their business through the competitive edge of the customer experience.


Contact Teri at ty@retainloyalcustomers.com

Her highly acclaimed book Unleashing Excellence – The Complete Guide to “ Ultimate Customer Service” has sold over 32,000 books and is recognized as a practical, hands-on approach to providing a seamless extraordinary service experience to retain customers and employees. Contact Teri at ty@retainloyalcustomers.com for your next speaking engagement or for a copy of her book.

Jan 25, 2011

Blame Game - Teri's Tip #32

When things go wrong, what is the typical first question that is posed?  "Who screwed up?"  Pointing fingers is a big mistake.  It only causes people to become defensive, protect their territory and take you longer to get at the root cause of what is causing the problem.

Therefore, when things go wrong, ask the question "what went wrong in the process?"  80% of the time, the problem is within the process and only 20% of the time is it a person who is at fault.  What this creates is a culture of continuous improvement.

http://www.retainloyalcustomers.com/
Teri Yanovitch is a leading speaker, trainer and consultant on creating a culture of customer service within an organization. Her firm T.A.Yanovitch, Inc. provides a clear and proven process on how to create this culture of service and helps guide organizations to ensure their success. Through her presentations, workshops and training, Teri has assisted organizations from all industries to differentiate their business through the competitive edge of the customer experience.


Contact Teri at ty@retainloyalcustomers.com

Her highly acclaimed book Unleashing Excellence – The Complete Guide to “ Ultimate Customer Service” has sold over 32,000 books and is recognized as a practical, hands-on approach to providing a seamless extraordinary service experience to retain customers and employees. Contact Teri at ty@retainloyalcustomers.com for your next speaking engagement or for a copy of her book

May 5, 2010

Teri's Tip #1

Remember it can be a  gift when customers complain.  It gives you an opportunity to learn something about your processes that will enable you to improve.

The key is to fix their concern (see Service Recovery) and then go back and figure out what caused the complaint and see if you can prevent it from happening again.