Having recently posted my 100^th blog, I thought it would be worth-while to share my list of 100 reasons why companies should embrace Six Sigma . . .

Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers . . . Customers

Any questions?

Today’s world seems to have us all going 90 miles an hour, multi-tasking and stretching ourselves to the limit to get things done. Finding time for home, work, school, kids, parents, church, volunteering etc. has become one of our biggest challenges. Time has become a precious commodity for everyone. No one has it to waste and no one wants to wait. So what does all this have to do with W.O.W.? Everything.

What’s Needed – On Time – With Value . . . Save time for your customers by enabling efficient transactions and watch your WOW-O-Meter go off scale. How? Reduce the time waiting in line, reduce the time holding on the phone, reduce the time a customer has to wait for a delivery, and enable transactions when your customer has time. It’s all about the process. Cut out bottlenecks and things will keep moving. Eliminate defects and you won’t have to stop to fix them. Remove unneeded steps or hand-offs and you’ll be one step closer to ‘lean time’. Best of all, enable efficient transactions at a time that’s convenient to your customer and increase customer delight.

So, don’t keep your customers waiting for W.O.W. Act now!

What’s Needed - On Time - With Value (W.O.W.) It’s even more relevant in today’s economy. As families struggle to make ends meet, the value provided for the dollar spent is more important than ever. What does this mean? Higher expectations from customers at a time when businesses themselves are tightening up the spending reins. What should we do? Panic? No - we don’t need to stinkin’ panic . . . we got Six Sigma!

For decades, the "excellence minded" have used Six Sigma to balance the Quality - Delivery - Cost equation. And it’s times like these that will separate the "excellence minded" from the "naysayers". For excellence is not a linear function of money rather it is a combination of passion, planning, process and people. It’s not about squeezing the last dollar out of your process; it’s about finding new and innovative ways to deliver value at a lower cost. So what are you waiting for? Get out your six sigma toolbox, get engaged and take the lead in creating customer W.O.W. It’s time!

Consistently delighting customers and providing exceptional handling of issues and errors using the R.A.P.I.D. methodology are two ways to create customer W.O.W. (What’s Needed - On Time - With Value) But just figuring out how it’s done is of little value if you cannot consistently deliver. Process maps, which are an integral part of the Six Sigma methodology, enable this consistency.

Process maps identify inputs and outputs of the process. Targeting specific inputs where best practices can be applied will help assure actions that create customer W.O.W. (delighters) are integrated into the process. Customer feedback on past performance as well as trends related to customer issues can also be linked back to specific steps in the process map where the process can be modified to prevent problems or add delighters.

Once finalized, a process map serves as a learning tool to help train all stakeholders on the consistent approach that has been developed. The process map provides a broad view of how specific actions, consistently applied, help create the type of overall experience needed to achieve Customer W.O.W. And, if needed, the map can also serve as a basis for creating a Standard Operating Procedure or Job Aid that provides steps that will facilitate this consistent approach.

Finding your way to the W.O.W. Side is not an easy task. But once there, helping others consistently find the way is much easier if you build them a map.

The best way to create customer W.O.W. is to consistently provide customers with What’s Needed - On Time - With Value. In a perfect world it is always W.O.W. time. But in the real world sometimes things go wrong. The clothes don’t fit, the food is cold, the hostess is rude, the cable goes out, the list goes on. What next?

Customer concerns and/or complaints are not a basic ingredient for W.O.W. but in themselves create an opportunity to turn OW into WOW. All it takes is RAPID response. RAPID response considers two elements in fixing a customer’s concern - the operational action and the emotional factor. Maintaining a positive interaction while fixing a problem or concern can sometimes turn a customer OW to WOW. But you need both parts - fixing the problem but snubbing the emotional side can leave your customer feeling bruised. Being empathetic and caring but not getting the problem fixed doesn’t hit the mark either. It is the right combination of what you do and how you do it that will establish your service level one notch above the rest.

So next time your customer experiences an OW moment, put RAPID response to work and see if you can turn OW to WOW.

As I was getting into the cab outside Sheraton Saigon, the concierge guy handed me a small square piece of paper. "What’s this for?", I asked, without really looking at what was handed to me.

"In case you have trouble with the driver sir.", the concierge guy answered. It was a small feedback form allowing hotel guests to rate their cab drivers. Don’t think I would have the need for it though, I thought. The airport ride’s just a 7km-distance, 45-60 minutes. I took the form anyway. It was so tiny one wouldn’t call it a form.

Well, I did hit a little cab trouble. Upon reaching the Tan Son Nhat International Airport the driver insisted that I pay for a ’parking ticket’ which I would not; translating into some unpleasantaries on his part. I finally got out of the cab, very upset, after paying the correct fare. The form came a little handy in facilitating my complain to the hotel as the concierge guy had written the cab ID on it earlier.

A few weeks later I did have the opportunity to ask the Director of Rooms how on earth the hotel manages a process which are out of the hotel’s scope of processes. As I found out bad cab rides are one of the major reasons why people don’t return to Vietnam. No guessing whether this impacts on hotel guest experience in the check-out process or not. Well Andy related to me that his hotel works closely with the Tourism Board and cab company ensuring feedback is directed back to the cab company and to that particular cab driver. Apparently the hotel takes a serious stance against errant cab drivers trying to make a fast buck.

On my next visit I don’t think I’ll ever run into the same guy again in cab 256.

In my December blog I touched on customer feedback and understanding how to translate this feedback into action. It is important to analyze variation in customer feedback to fully understand how customers feel. For example, if your customers rate you a "7" on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the best), do your customer ratings range from 6 to 8 or do they range from 4 to 10? What would you do with this information?

First, segmentation of customer feedback is critical. But before you can slice and dice all the data, you need to figure out what information needs to be gathered to allow for meaningful ’slicing and dicing’. Age, demographic, location, product usage, the list can become quite unwieldy if no prework has been done. In most cases, one size does not fit all. Before you launch into a huge customer survey, defining your ’slice and dice’ variables is critical or all you will end up with is a bunch of data. Sort of like a bunch of grapes. As we learned from Kaj Ahlmann at the iSixSigma Live Summit, you’ve got to have better sorting than "green" and "purple" to make a fine glass of Six Sigma wine.

Once you’ve been able to appropriately segment your feedback, you can start looking at the satisfaction level of various groups and identify if ratings "within and between" various segments are the same or statistically different. Once you have great segmentation and analysis, then the hard part begins - answering the following questions . . .

• Which process drives the customer satisfaction metric that you are evaluating?
• What is the variation in the process?
• Is the variation in the process correlated to the variation in customer satisfaction?

If the process is stable but the customer feedback has lots of variation, there is most likely another variable that may be driving satisfaction or dissatisfaction. If the process has a lot of variation, it is worth exploring to see if the process variation is indeed driving variation in customer satisfaction.

Soon it may become clear that there are two types of process issues that are reflected in the satisfaction levels. Some may involve processes that have little variation but clearly need to move up a notch to improve satisfaction. On the other hand, feedback may show a large process variation (resulting in scores of 4 to 10). This feedback is interesting because it identifies a small group of customers that are highly satisfied (those providing a 10 rating). All else being equal, should you first focus on the process that requires reduction in variation or take a good process (little variation) and try to move it up a couple of notches?

In this particular example, I’d pick the process that has the most variation and set an objective to reduce the variation using best process performance as the target mean. The reason I picked this approach is that the process has already proven its ability to satisfy at a ’10’ level so I already have data related to what a ’10’ performance looks (and feels) like to the customer. If the process has little variation and customer ratings range from 6 to 8, trying to define what a ’10’ may feel like to the customer will require further research and customer feedback to determine the process improvement target (worth pursuing at a later time).

Some of you out there may agree or disagree with this approach. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts.

The one thing that I think we can all agree on is that when faced with a ’bunch’ of stuff to improve, we should try to ’pick’ the types of things that can make the biggest difference to our customer and go for it. The only bad choice is to not make a choice and do nothing. And when you do nothing your Grapes of W.O.W. will surely turn into Sour Grapes.

So you’ve decided that you are ready to embark on the journey to the W.O.W. Side. Now what? What does it look like - feel like? Who’s got the directions? And how do you know when you’ve arrived? Simple . . . Just Ask.

If you are providing your Customers with a W.O.W. experience, you will know it. If you are not, you will know it as well. Defining What’s needed, On time, With value goes beyond having great customer service. It is using customer input to help you design and define products, services and channels to deliver them in a way that creates customer delight.

Being right on the heels of the shopping season for many across the globe, now is a perfect time to ask customers about W.O.W. Most have spent the last month either shopping in stores or on-line and many have already experienced the joy of returning or exchanging items. Both of these transactions, either buying or returning are opportunities to W.O.W. your customer. How do you know if you passed the W.O.W. test? Ask them. It is the most direct form of customer feedback that you can get.

Customer feedback, of all types, is the backbone of W.O.W. It comes in many forms. Market research is a form of feedback that helps define what customers want. Analyzing buying patterns and market data and developing surveys that ask questions related to your product or service is key. Once a product or service is developed or provided, again asking customers what they think is important. And, when your customers have a question or problem that needs to be resolved, asking them if you are providing a delightful experience is again an opportunity to learn more. Surveys, whether on the spot, or after a time-lapse can capture valuable insights as to how customers feel about the service or product and are a true gage of W.O.W.

Here’s an example of how immediate feedback works. Yesterday I had a lengthy transaction at a bank and next to each teller was a sign that said, "Ring the bell if you got exceptional service." I was in the bank for at least twenty minutes and never heard the bell ring. I was wondering if my teller was going to W.O.W. me and yes she did. Awesome service. I finished my transaction in the back and as I walked out went past her workspace, said thank you and rang the bell. Everyone looked up and across the counter I saw a big smile. It made me feel good - looks like my W.O.W. experience turned into hers. (Double W.O.W)

I can’t leave the customer feedback discussion without touching on customer complaints. Customer complaints provide valuable input as well. Reviewing, categorizing and analyzing complaints to identify trends and any recurring issues is a great way to capture customer feedback (even if it is not the preferred method.) All of this analysis begs for application of Six Sigma tools.

So you have feedback, analysis and some possible recommendations. What next? Translating this feedback into a business plan is the next step. Without this, all you have is feedback. This is the tough part but operationalizing customer feedback and using it to drive your Business Plan is not an option - it’s a requirement. Linking your business plan to process improvements closes the loop (sounds like Hoshin to me). And after improvements are implemented, it is time to ask the customer for feedback to see if your improvements made a difference.

As you can see, the whole process of W.O.W. starts with the customer and ends with the customer. And throughout the journey Six Sigma serves as an integral part of how to make it so. Join me next time as we explore some of these Six Sigma linkages or better yet, join me at iSixSigma Live in January where I’ll be sharing some insights in person on how to Take a Walk on the W.O.W. Side^TM

What’s Needed . . . On Time . . . With Value . . . That’s what you’ll find on the W.O.W. Side. More simply put, it is about customer delight. I like the words "customer delight". Webster’s defines delight as ’extreme satisfaction’ . . . It is what gets your customers to say WOW! Professor Noriaki Kano described the look and feel of WOW with the Kano Model. It’s going past satisfying customer basic needs and performance needs and finding those things that excite or delight the customer thus creating customer WOW. Sounds simple but you will find that many companies, although striving for WOW, have not figured out how to consistently meet basic needs and therefore wallow in the halls of "can’t get there from here". Basic needs are those things that if done correctly do not add to customer satisfaction but if done incorrectly will result in dissatisfaction. For example, if you are checking out of a hotel and your bill is correct it’s a non-event. No one is running around saying WOW, they got my bill right. But having an error on the bill results in customer dissatisfaction.

The first step in mapping your path to the W.O.W. Side is getting the basics right. Sounds simple but it is not. How many times in the past month have you experienced poor service or poor quality? Maybe it was getting home and finding out that the drive-through restaurant left a sandwich out of your order or maybe you had to stand in line for 15 minutes to get through a checkout line. The fact that basic needs are constantly changing makes this step even more complicated. What was a delighter last week will, over time, work its way to a basic need. For example, years ago having internet service in a hotel was a delighter. Today, if a hotel doesn’t provide free wireless service they are teetering on the edge of creating customer dissatisfaction. Customer basic needs and expectations are changing so fast that in the blink of an eye you can find yourself quickly moving from Customer WOW to Customer OW proving once more that meeting basic needs is an ongoing journey - not a one time accomplishment.

So where do you start? Get the basics right. Define your core business and products, review metrics that describe your performance level, identify any defects that keep you from getting the basics right and apply continuous improvement methods such as lean, six sigma, kaizen, etc. to eliminate dissatisfiers. You will also need to constantly draw on customer input to gage your success and keep your ’basics’ up-to-date.

Getting the basics right is a prerequisite to being able to "Take a Walk on the W.O.W. Side". Bypass this step and you may find that the old saying "You can’t get there from here" may be old but still stands true.

Customer Complaints, appropriately captured and analyzed, can provide useful insight about process defects. Although complaints are not the preferred method of obtaining the Voice of the Customer (VOC), you should not miss the opportunity to learn from them. But to do this, proper reporting and segmentation of customer complaints is needed. This requires that good operational definitions be established. Often times, this first step is where we fail to capture the granularity of information needed to provide future meaningful analysis. For example, once a complaint is received and recorded, obtaining more specific information for further analysis will be difficult if not impossible. Categorizing complaints about a product or service as "doesn’t work" or "too hard to use" won’t be much help in identifying the root cause of the problem.

Identifying a good list of complaint "cause codes" for your particular business will take some work but will be worth while in providing information that drives a solution that not only fixes this customer’s complaint but can be used to prevent other customers from experiencing the same type of problem. It is all too easy to put a band-aid on the customer’s boo-boo and walk away. After all - this solves the immediate customer’s problem. But without capturing detailed aspects about the customer complaint, even the best six sigma black belt will be hard pressed to help you understand the rest of the story.