Process Improvement

What you see in the photo above is a type of workshop called a kaizen. A kaizen is a type of process improvement, and there are multiple types of kaizens. In the American workplace, it's often an event or series or events where a problem is described in great detail. The team, representing all types of stakeholders, brainstorms solutions, regardless of how irrational they might seem. Then, the team talks through each one until a potential decision is reached out. The decision is then mapped out, with tangible goals in mind.

But process improvement doesn't always have to be this extensive. Sometimes it's as simple as having a third party come in, observe processes, and then make recommendations that can be immediately implemented.

Contact me TODAY to see how I can help - it might require a kaizen-style process improvement workshop, but there might be easy, immediate fixes I can help you to implement to make things run more smoothly.

Process Improvement Case Study: Customer Satisfaction

I once worked at a large tech company that produces tablet-style devices. While functioning email is something we tend to take for granted on our mobile devices these days, at this point in time it wasn't always the case. The native email app on this particular device had a difficult time with email addresses that weren't the standard Yahoo, Hotmail, or Gmail account. And they especially struggled when the email provider was a defunct Internet provider that had been purchased by another one (e.g., Qwest, BellSouth, Ameritech, SBC).

We found that our customer support teams would consistently receive above the normal amount of negative feedback when the customer contact was about this issue, so I decided to figure out why. I sifted through customer contact data and listened to a lot of phone calls until I got a sense of the problem - this is known as root cause analysis. By doing this kind of investigation, we don't just slap a Band-Aid on the problem - we find the source and fix it to prevent the problem from happening again.

What I found was that customer service representatives became annoyed as soon as they realized the type of problem the customer had. But why? It's critical to ask this question because otherwise we'd stop at simply attempting to correct behaviors.

So I continued to dig and found that when an email account needs to be manually configured, on any device or app - whether it's Microsoft Outlook on a PC, or an email app on a tablet - there are many technical settings that must be applied. While most of our techs knew this, they didn't know enouh about it to be helpful and actually solve the problem, leading to frustrated employees and customers. No one was happy.

I kept digging until I fully understood the nuances of email servers, SSL settings and associated port numbers, and other information until it was no longer random information that involved guesswork. We were able to produce a chart that showed representatives exactly what to do in this situation!

I developed some training for the team, and we saw negative feedback drop by 12% in less than four weeks.

Whether you have a problem that has been easily identified and are looking for a solution or the problem is less clear, I'm here to help!

Contact me TODAY and let's get started making your business leaner and faster, and your customers happier!

More Consulting Areas

Process improvement often goes hand-in-hand with other dynamics of business. Learn more about the other areas where I can help: