Streamlining Your Customer Service Experience

There’s always a lot that can be done to provide a faster, more adequate customer service to your clients. You may not even realize that you have any problems on that front, especially if you aren’t tracking the right metrics. But at the end of the day, providing a good service is not something that people see as a bonus tacked on to their initial purchase it’s become a fundamental requirement in the eyes of many consumers.

Expectations Are Changing Fast

That’s because things like the internet and smartphones have completely changed the landscape, and have promoted a much more rapid style of interaction between consumers and the businesses they use. Many people now expect their queries to be answered as fast as possible, in some cases even immediately. And while it’s possible to reach that state, it won’t happen without a significant amount of effort on your part, as well as lots of planning ahead of time.

Responding to a Growing Market

You have to adapt the way you’re working to a market that’s constantly growing and changing at a very rapid rate. Approaches that are relevant today will be anything but just a few years from now, and you have to come to terms with that fact. You must also ensure that your company is able to keep up with the growing demands of its consumers. In some cases, it’s not just about providing fast and reliable support you have to make sure that your customer always feels like they are your top priority.

Product or Service?

The distinction between a product and an ongoing service is becoming thinner and thinner, and many people now treat all of their purchases like the latter. It’s not hard to see why either, with the advance of various new solutions like software-as-a-service that consumers have realized, have lots of benefits. But it’s not always that easy to implement these methodologies in the work of every company, especially those that provide more specific types of products that are likely not immediately susceptible to this.

The point is, you have to figure out a way to present your product as more of a service if you want to draw the attention of your consumers and keep it pinned. This is not as easy as it looks, and it’s going to take some effort.

Eliminating Unnecessary Points

Waste is a big problem in customer service and remains a troubling factor for many companies on the market. It’s not always that easy to address it either, because it can take some surprising forms. You have to implement methodologies like Six Sigma if you want to ensure that waste is kept to a minimum, but finding the right specialists who are familiar enough with those topics can be quite the challenge. It’s also something that can benefit your company tremendously in the long run though, so if you can afford to do this kind of search now, it’s definitely a good idea to get started on it.

The Importance of Constant Evaluation

You should also keep track of your progress at all times, and ensure that you’re moving in the right direction. This can be difficult to do without an adequate overview of how well you’re doing though, and that in turn requires some complex analytical systems that produce enough data from multiple points. It will take some time to set those things up at first, but once you’ve got the ball rolling, you should be able to easily keep track of everything that’s happening in your support facilities, and know when there’s a problem that needs your intervention.

If you’ve done things right though, that should not happen often at all. And when it does, you should not treat it as a negative factor by itself. Problems can be surprisingly useful in the long run, because they can teach you various details about the way your business is running that may not have been obvious otherwise. And the more you continue to explore your market and collect data about the way it works, the more confident you’re going to be in the long run when making your next moves. And with that, you’ll be able to create the perfect customer support system.

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In the U.S., poor customer service costs brands $83 billion every year. A study by management consultancy Bain & Company and Harvard Business School found increasing customer retention rates by 5 percent increases profits by 25 to 95 percent. To keep your customers coming back, businesses must provide a good product and a high-quality customer experience. Exemplary customer service distinguishes your brand, builds repeat business, combats price competition, and even improves employee morale.

Watch this amazing TED Talk and find out more:

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When coming up with a standardized approach to continuous process improvement, root cause analysis is a critical component. It seeks to identify the problem, its source and then fix it once and for all so it never pops up again. Ultimately, this improves the quality of the process’s outputs. When it comes to root cause analysis, time is of the essence. Action needs to be taken the moment the problem is identified before it becomes a really big and costly issue. 

While there is no one way to conduct a root cause analysis, here are seven steps that you can follow to ensure that it is done properly:

1. Identify and Sort the Problems

All businesses experience issues in one form or the other, but what matters is how they are handled. To begin with, it is essential to identify the problems and then sort them in order of severity so the most urgent ones can be tackled first.

2. Define the Problem

For the problem chosen to be solved first, it needs to be clearly and concisely defined, with emphasis on its solvability. There’s no point trying to tackle problems that have no discernible solution at the moment.

3. Identify Possible Causes

A team should be gathered for a brainstorming session. This is where the team can utilize one of Six Sigma’s strategies for root cause analysis: the five whys. The strategy involves asking the question “Why?” five times in order to get to the underlying causes of the problem. Five is not a hard rule but a rule of thumb – the question can be asked as little or as many times as needed.

Then the team will discuss and select the possible ways to fix the problem. It is important to always pay attention to the root causes in order to come up with an effective solution.

4. Make Improvements

At this stage all the improvements should be implemented and communicated to everyone involved – don’t leave anyone out. Clearly communicating things like the deadlines, deliverables, reasons and benefits can go a long way towards making continuous improvement stick.

5. Review the Improvements

Review the improvements that were made and make amendments where necessary. If the problem persists, don’t be afraid to go back to step number 3.

6. Standardize the Procedures

Create documents that outline what procedures need to be standardized and be sure to share them with everyone involved. Also, ask yourselves if these procedures are applicable elsewhere in the organization (HR? Customer service? Marketing?).

7. Review and Control the New Procedures

Check on a regular basis to ensure that the standardized procedures are effectively rectifying the problem. Also, make sure that people in the organization are following them by reviewing the procedures every 3-6 months.

Conclusion

Conducting root cause analysis is not an extremely complicated process. However, if done properly, it can produce benefits that can make the organization competitive and profitable. There is no one way to conduct, but the above-mentioned seven steps can help you do it if they are in line with the way your organization operates. Otherwise, they can be adjusted to suit your organization.

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Six Sigma provides benefits no matter which industry it is being used, even if it is the foodservice industry. This is particularly true for restaurants. But how exactly can a restaurant use Six Sigma to its benefit? Here are four use cases that can help paint the picture.

1. Improving Efficiency

Focussing on efficiency is different depending on what restaurant it is. For instance, If it is a fast-food joint, the food needs to be prepared at a quicker pace in order to serve customers and make deliveries faster while making sure to reduce costs. Efficiency for owners of a dining establishment will pay attention to providing customers with a high-quality dining experience in the most efficient manner possible, from the service to the food.

2. Increasing Profits

A big part of managing a restaurant is making sure there is minimal inventory waste. Because of the tools and techniques provided by Six Sigma, there is greater control of inventory, allowing for the reduction of waste and minimization of costs. For instance, Six Sigma’s tools and techniques can allow restaurant managers to anticipate how busy the restaurant will be on a particular day. They can do this by analyzing the data collected over a specific period of time. This can allow restaurant managers to order the exact amount of inventory needed for that day to reduce waste and realize more profits.

When it comes to service delivery, staff are a critical component. The level of customer service is directly proportional to sales. Six Sigma can help restaurants improve customer service in order to improve sales through the DMAIC methodology. For instance, proven methods of enhancing customer services can be embedded in the Control phase while the restaurant staff is being trained in DMAIC

Customer service is not the only thing that has a direct effect on sales. Marketing does too. Using Six Sigma’s data-driven approach, restaurants can measure and analyze data to target their ideal customer with the right marketing strategy. This way, resources are not wasted on targeting the wrong people and there is a good return on investment (ROI). As more data from the marketing campaign comes through, the strategy can be continuously improved based on further analysis to achieve an even greater ROI.

3. Testing New Products

Most times, if restaurants want to see if customers will like a new menu item, they just put it on the menu then see what happens. However, Six Sigma uses a different approach. Restaurant managers can look at the data (e.g. accounting data) to see if the product they just introduced is increasing sales enough to warrant a permanent spot on the menu.

4. Reduced Costs

Established methodologies like Six Sigma do a great job of strengthening relationships in key business areas to cut costs. For instance, if the restaurant’s accountant has an efficient and standardized approach to record-keeping that is highly-accurate, they can minimize costs and save the restaurant a significant amount of money.

Conclusion

Six Sigma can help restaurants and other businesses in the foodservice industry in many ways. As you can see, it works well to help restaurants improve efficiency, increase profits, test new products and reduce costs. All of these use cases help the business become more profitable and gain a competitive edge.

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Voice of Customer, or VOC, is how you will stay above the competition. Many business owners feel they know exactly what their customers/clients want, but in actuality they don’t. People are constantly changing, so the Six Sigma tool VOC is extremely important.

Let’s take a fictitious scenario that could have happened. As we all know, milk delivery stopped many years ago.Today people buy their milk from supermarkets, and the need for milk delivery has diminished. This didn’t happen overnight; it was gradual, until one day many people lost their jobs as businesses closed down. 

What if we added Six Sigma methodologies to this scenario?

DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control)

Define: Business is down as people are cancelling their service. I have 10 truck drivers delivering milk and dairy products to many customers. I will reach out to my customers and ask if milk is still important to them, and if not what is their new beverage or product of choice.

Measure: Look at the ledgers and find the data that shows how much business is down and in what areas. Then get all the data that shows how much is spent on gas and maintenance of trucks. Assess all outgoing and incoming data.

Analyze: After looking at all the data, it seems that people are moving away from milk and dairy products. After speaking with customers, they all agree that delivery service is appreciated but lifestyles are changing.

Improve: I have decided to start offer delivery of groceries for the busy family. As a trial run, I have taken three of my trucks and offered my current milk clients this service. They stated that early morning delivery is still great because both parents are at work all day. This has kept my business going, and business is up since I am the only one to offer this service.

Control: I will monitor and change as my customers’ needs change. I will continue to keep in touch with my customers and keep an eye on the data and receipts that dictate how business is doing financially. I was also able to keep my drivers on the job. 

* Note: This is a condensed example of could have been done.

For more information on our Lean Six Sigma courses and services, please visit 6sigma.com. 

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Customer Service and Six Sigma The Fundamental Link

With all the talk about Six Sigma and its benefits for various organizations in the last few years, it’s important to understand its implications on some specific areas, like customer service. There is a lot to gain from optimizing your processes with the help of Six Sigma methodologies, and if you’ve never put any thought into streamlining your customer services before, you have a lot to gain.

Keep in mind that this is a gradual process though, and it’s going to take a while before you see proper results. But as long as you’re persistent and keep your eye on the prize, you should be able to leverage the potential of Six Sigma for some pretty impressive results.

Modern Customer Service Requirements

The requirements for customer service have changed a lot in recent years, and they are quite different today from what they used to be in the past. Various new trends have come up on the market, and all of them have to be addressed carefully if you want to ensure that you’ll stay relevant to your customers. For example, you will often have to think about improving the speed at which you provide that service, or give your customers alternative options for getting through to your support.

Companies have started to experiment with some interesting approaches to improving their customer service in this regard, but many have realized that Six Sigma is one of the best ways to go about that.

The Evolution of Six Sigma

Six Sigma itself is not static far from it. It’s gone through some serious development in recent years, and it looks quite a bit different today from what it used to. That said, the core principles remain the same, and it’s still a great tool for optimizing and streamlining processes. One thing that Six Sigma does especially well these days is wrangling processes with lots of unknowns in them.

That’s because the system is more universal and developed to be used in a broader set of circumstances. A lot of effort has been put into this specific aspect of it in recent years, and we’re already seeing some great result.

Connecting the Dots

Putting everything together, it’s easy to see why Six Sigma enjoys so much popularity among companies looking to improve their service quality and to connect better to their customers. It’s a great methodology for optimizing an arbitrary system, and considering the complexity of your typical customer service situation, it’s a perfect fit for addressing some of the common problems in this area as well.

You have to be careful though you will need an experienced approach for this. Six Sigma is a complex field in itself, and applying it incorrectly can easily backfire on your operations if you’re not prepared. Make sure that you’re aware of the implications of utilizing Six Sigma in your workflow fully, and only work with specialists when you’re trying to integrate it into your own company.

Anticipating the Future

A lot can happen in the future, especially judging by the current state of the market. And while it’s impossible to predict tomorrow with complete accuracy, you can certainly pay attention to the way some trends are evolving and establishing a position on the market. When it comes to customer service, the trends are already pretty obvious, and it’s just a matter of following them and integrating them into your own workflow correctly. And with the help of Six Sigma, you can focus on the aspects of that workflow that truly matter in the end. It will likely take some time, but you’ll eventually be in a situation where you’re completely prepared for the developments of tomorrow.

The link between Six Sigma and customer service is starting to become more and more obvious, and many companies have started to realize this recently. If you want to be at the forefront of these developments, you should take some time to study what Six Sigma has to offer, and how it can be integrated into your own workflow. You’ll likely quickly come to the realization that it carries more benefits than you can initially see on the surface, and you’ll find many ways to integrate it into your company’s work.

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