Lean was born out of manufacturing practices, but in recent times, has transformed the world of knowledge work and management. It encourages the practice of continuous improvement and is based on the fundamental idea of respect for people. Womack and Jones defined the five principles of Lean manufacturing in their book The Machine That Changed […]
Customer Journey Mapping is a strategic activity, helping us to develop empathy for the customer, identify areas for improvement, and helps us design services that delight the customer resulting in greater loyalty, higher retention, and ultimately business growth.
Customer Experience: What Are We Really Fixing?
We have heard it all before. The customer is always right and what the customer says ¦ goes! Yeah well, that is true ¦ to a point. We will do whatever it takes to make the customer happy, but we are not going to change our core operational process because that is what made our […]
Food Service: Serving Up Six Sigma Quality Daily
The food service industry is tough. The challenges of the industry range from food costs and quality, to customer service and effectively using labor. To create the perfect experience, owners must find a delicate balance with these challenges. But to add to those challenges, in today’s digital environment, customers are engaging with social media, which […]
Developing Customer Personas To Create Customer Journey Maps
Developing Customer Personas are a critical step in building Customer Journey Maps. Keeping in mind the purpose of the exercise is key: We develop customer journey maps in order to gain empathy for the customer, learn what they actually go through versus what we think they go through, identify the steps as well as the […]
Visualizing the Customer Experience: Customer Journey Map and Continuous Improvement
Go here to view a customer journey map video explanation and download a free template. In a prior post, I discussed how most Lean practitioners focus primarily on the mechanical aspects of a process and often ignore the emotions of the customer. In other words, one can improve the process, but with complete disregard for […]
Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Output, Customers (SIPOC Diagram)
A SIPOC is a high level process map that includes Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Output, and Customers. The video below explains SIPOC and shows several examples from real world Six Sigma projects. You can order SIPOC template with the Lean Six Sigma templates bundle. A SIPOC can also help us identify the metrics that matter. To […]