From the category archives:

customer segmentation

Customer Service – A Chance for Redemption

by Pete Abilla March 24, 2009

In a very tough economy, keeping customers happy should have more considerable weight and attention from companies.  I had a negative customer experience recently at Home Depot, where they had a chance to redeem themselves from a very poor customer experience. On March 18, 2009, I went to Home Depot to buy some tools to [...]

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Variation for Dummies

by Pete Abilla January 3, 2007

Most organizations collect and report on metrics that are not descriptive of their processes. Some of you may have noticed that most metrics that are reported are the “average” and some organization also use the “median”. Most people do not understand elementary statistics and their application to business. Here is the truth of the matter: [...]

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Jack Welch & The Boston Globe, Final Chapter

by Pete Abilla October 30, 2006

Previously in Part 1 and Part 2, we discussed the possibility of Jack Welch acquiring The Boston Globe. We’ve discussed several things Jack might do, if the deal goes through. All of which, has to do with the Profit Tree model, which is below: We know that the Globe’s circulation recently dropped by as much [...]

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Jack Welch & The Boston Globe, Part 1

by Pete Abilla October 25, 2006

This is part 1 of a 3 part series. The other parts can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. There’s a rumor that Jack Welch and his private equity partners might acquire The Boston Globe. When I heard this, I immediately thought of the following: if Welch bought it, how would he [...]

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Applied Regression Analysis

by Pete Abilla September 2, 2006

Sometime ago, I was able to do some work involving advanced statistics for a very complex process. This very large healthcare company was struggling with absenteeism issues — that is, the call center representatives would sometimes just not show up for work, or have other human resources issues. I wasn’t privy to those details, and [...]

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Focus on the Customer

by Pete Abilla July 24, 2006

Jeff Bezos, during a pre-peak meeting once said to a small group of us that there will be many, many winners on the internet. He said that some follow the close-follower mentality and those companies focus on the competition. He continued to say that Amazon has and always will be customer obsessed. He vowed that [...]

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The Pareto Principle

by Pete Abilla June 26, 2006
This entry is part 16 of 28 in the series Lean and Six Sigma

The Pareto Principle was named after an Italian economist who discovered that 80% of the wealth in Europe was concentrated in 20% of the population. This discovery is also known as the 80/20 rule or the Law of the Vital Few. The Pareto Principle is a phenomenon that finds application in many places, such as [...]

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Don’t Waste the Customer’s Time

by Pete Abilla June 26, 2006

Very few service providers, regardless of service, look at the customer’s experience — from the customer’s point of view. If they did, service providers would realize that customer’s wait around a lot and much of the customer’s time is wasted. Queue’s can be an effective way to organize. The key is in managing the queue [...]

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