ley hill solutions expert interview

Do you dread getting customer complaints? "Who doesn't?" you might say. Well, why not try looking at them in a whole new light? Customer complaints are actually a valuable source of customer research and information. In fact, by going to the trouble of making a complaint, your customer is giving you free consultancy advice on what you need to do better. Really disgruntled customers will often not bother to complain, they will simply go elsewhere and/or badmouth you to their friends and colleagues. So if they have made the effort to tell you why they are unhappy, they are giving you both the chance to put things right and the opportunity to refine your products and services so that you keep your other customers happy. Listen to what they say and use it to build stronger customer relationships, improve processes and stay competitive. Here are a few pointers on how to make the most out of customer complaints

The more you encourage your customers to let you know if they have a problem, the more opportunities you will have to improve your service to them. Here are some ways you can make it easy for them -

Create a no blame culture. Complaints could get stuck or hidden within your organisation if individuals fear that they will reflect badly on them, leading to criticism from managers. This could lead to an improvement opportunity being lost and also to the complaint not being handled as well as it could be. Enforce the message that customer complaints, if acted upon, are as valuable to your operation as customer compliments and that, for individuals, they are learning opportunities. Where possible, in developing any resultant improvement to processes or ways of working, involve those individuals who were responsible for the activity that led to the complaint. Ensure any mistakes caused, in whole or in part, by lack of expertise or experience lead to appropriate development action.

Create a systematic process for dealing with complaints

Create a process whereby complaints are dealt with quickly and systematically and reported back to a relevant manager who can, if needed, take it for discussion and decision on remedial actions and changes to processes.

Capture the information

Written complaints (letters or email) can be quickly passed forward for inspection and action. For verbal complaints (phone or in person), you need to ensure that complaints are not misreported and the meaning twisted by the emotions of the recipient. Staff need professional training, so that they know how to establish they have understood the exact nature of the complaint and there needs to be a systematic process in place for recording the details.

Encourage staff to be proactive in handling complaints

Customers value being able to deal with people who are empowered to think and act for themselves - but, again, ensure they are trained in professional and effective complaint handling first.

Use the opportunity to turn a disgruntled customer into a loyal one

Use complaints to drive process improvement and competitive edge

By establishing a systematic recording and assessment of customer complaints, you can not only apply remedies for process failures, but also gain valuable information to help you develop and improve your products and services to maintain a market edge.

According to Paul Sloane, founder of Destination Innovation, in business, unlike in sport, most of the rules can be broken without penalty. He argues that rule breakers are the ones that create value and success through innovation. Of course some rules have to be obeyed. No business would remain successful for very long if it wilfully flouted the law or treated its employees neglectfully. But what Paul Sloane is talking about are the rules of convention, custom and practice that encourage us to do things a certain way because once that way was successful and we have blindly followed it ever since.

He quotes the example of the QWERTY keyboard, designed in the 1870's to slow down the speed of typing, by siting the most commonly used letters away from the index fingers, because the keys of mechanical typewriters were prone to jamming when typing at very high speeds. So why are QWERTY keyboards used for computers when a different arrangement would clearly allow us to type faster? Because it is a rule we use when designing keyboards and training people to type! Following rules like this blinds us to other, potentially better, options and stifles creativity and innovation.

Examples of very successful innovators who have ripped up the rule book are -

Business is rife with opportunities to create new ways to provide the goods and services that customers really want. All you need to do is break the rules and think laterally.

Dr Genichi Taguchi was raised in the textile town of Tokamachi in Japan, studying textile engineering with the intention of entering the family kimono business. However, after being drafted into the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II, his experience led him into a wider industrial career, initially with spells in the Ministry of Public Health and Welfare, the Institute of Statistical Mathematics and the pharmaceuticals industry and eventually the electric communications industry. In 1950 he joined the Electrical Communications Laboratory (ECL) of the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, just as statistical quality control was beginning to become popular in Japan under the influence of W. Edwards Deming (covered in the second of our Quality Guru series, in our March newsletter). Taguchi spent his twelve years at ECL in developing methods for enhancing quality and reliability. During this time he was beginning to consult widely in Japanese industry, with Toyota being an early adopter of his ideas and in 1954 and 1955 he was also visiting professor at the Indian Statistical Institute, where he worked with other leaders in the international field of Total Quality methods and techniques, enabling him to develop the foundation blocks of what is now known as Taguchi methods.

Taguchi methods are based on the principle that it is preferable to design a product that is robust or insensitive to variation in the manufacturing process, rather than attempt to control all the many variations during actual manufacture. To put this idea into practice, Dr Genichi Taguchi took the already established knowledge on experimental design and made it more usable and practical for quality professionals. His message was concerned with the routine optimization of product and process prior to manufacture rather than quality through inspection. He pushed back quality and reliability to the design stage, where he believed they really belong, broken down into three stages:

This is fundamentally a prototyping method, which can be viewed along a continuum, that enables the designer to identify the optimal settings to produce a robust product that can survive manufacturing time after time, piece after piece and provide what the customer wants.

In 1962, on completing his doctorate at Kyushu University, Dr Genichi Taguchi left ECL, becoming professor of engineering at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo in 1964. After lecturing in the US in 1980 he collaborated with many international manufacturing companies such as Bell Labs, Ford Motor Company, Boeing, Xerox and ITT, helping them to embed his, by then, increasingly popular Taguchi methods.

Since 1982, Dr. Genichi Taguchi has been an advisor to the Japanese Standards Institute and executive director of the American Supplier Institute, an international consulting organization. His concepts and methods have even influenced fields beyond product design and manufacturing, such as sales process engineering. Throughout his career he has published many books on his work and received numerous accolades, culminating in his being presented with the Indigo Ribbon by the Emperor of Japan in 1986, for outstanding contributions to Japanese economics and industry. Also, in 1995, the Japanese Society of Quality Control made him an honorary member.

ley hill solutions aims to be one of Europe's most innovative consultancy organisations specialising in the tools and methods to improve the way your business works and performs. We use internationally recognised standards and frameworks such as ISO9001 and the EFQM Excellence Model to develop solutions that are right for your business.

 

Please contact us at ley hill solutions if we can be of any assistance.

 

 
Graham Hull
ley hill solutions limited