Tag Archives: framework

A Framework For Operational Excellence and Customer Obsession

Lean CX, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
This is a powerful definition of Operational Excellence, how it relates to Customer Obsession and has a huge impact on revenue, profit and employee engagement.  You can download a PDF version for yourself, free.  Enjoy!

 

A Framework For Operational Excellence and Customer Obsession

Operational Excellence.  It’s a term most of us have heard, maybe even used, but when it comes down to it few people know what it really, truly means.  Operational Excellence certainly sounds like something we should want – after all, everyone would say they want their business or team to operate well, and we want it to be excellent rather than average, right?

We need Operational Excellence

Operational Excellence is important enough for Jeff Bezos (the richest man in the world and the CEO of Amazon.com) to mention repeatedly in his shareholder letters, so there has to be some value in it.  And let me ruin the ending for you here – because when it comes to well defined operational excellence there is massive value indeed.

It’s a strategy that has helped Amazon become the most feared (and revered) business of the century so far – sending whole industries running for cover at the slightest mention of working there.  It’s a strategy that helped Toyota thrive for over 100 years in one of the toughest industries on earth.  It’s a strategy that took McDonald’s from one store to over 36,000 stores worldwide, and it’s a strategy that enabled Uber to grow to more than 2,000,000 drivers worldwide.  Bezos says:

Congratulations and thank you to the now over 560,000 Amazonians who come to work every day with unrelenting customer obsession, ingenuity, and commitment to operational excellence.

 

The thing is, when Jeff Bezos talks about customer obsession, he’s not talking about meeting a customer at a cash register and giving them a smile.  He’s talking about reducing any friction a customer might have in doing business with Amazon.com, and making it ridiculously easy for them to buy (and continue to buy) from them.

Which gives us some good news.  When it comes to Customer Obsession and Operational Excellence, those two things are 100% related.

Continue reading A Framework For Operational Excellence and Customer Obsession →

Leadership Card 29 – Reduce The Steps, Lean CX Model

Leadership Cards, , , , , , ,

Leadership Card 29 – Reduce The Steps, Lean CX Model

See All The Leadership Cards Here

Leadership_Card_029_ReduceSteps

Leadership CardsView All The Leadership Cards (48)

- or - Have the Leadership Cards delivered for your next meeting

There’s an old saying that goes: “The journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.”  It’s a great saying, and it’s a nice way to remind yourself to keep going and keep taking those steps when things get tough.

The only thing is, let’s say you’re a company selling software and you make your customers take 1000 steps to get what they want.  They might do it for a while, especially if you’re the only one selling that software.

But then another company comes along, and it gives your customers what they want in one step.  One single step.  Not 1000.  Just one.  Pretty soon, all your customers have gone to your competitor for the simple reason that it was easy to do so.  Nobody really wants to take that “journey” of 1000 miles or 1000 steps.

I bring this up because this is what many companies are doing in real life – they are making their customers jump through hoops, take extra steps, and take extra actions just to get what they want.  And they are doing this, of course, until Amazon comes along, gives customers one click ordering and ridiculously fast delivery and the other company falls apart.

Reducing the steps to people getting what they want is the master key to huge success in business.  It’s success with your customers, and it’s success in your teams.  The simple fact is that most companies and teams have not clearly articulated what they do, the outcomes they give, and how to get to those outcomes.  After all, that’s too mundane, right?  Why should they write down the steps they take to get customers (internal and external) what they want?  And you might think that way too, until you hear that nearly 50% of workers actually aren’t sure on what is expected of them in their job.  In other words, 1 in 2 people probably aren’t doing what you need them to do, because they simply don’t know what it is.  Why write it down?  Because you can’t reduce what you haven’t articulated in the first place.

Uber gave customers one-tap ordering of a ride, and now it’s a 70 billion dollar company.  Amazon Kindle gave you one click ordering of eBooks, and it has all but decimated physical book stores around the world.  Microsoft gave you Windows so you could click on what you wanted, when DOS (typing into a green screen) was still a thing.  Most of you won’t remember DOS because it basically disappeared from view once Windows was released.

Also, have you ever noticed that complicated things tend to break more often?  That complicated system, complicated code, complicated buying process, complicated risk review or complicated creation of the annual shareholder report – where things are complicated with too many steps, hand-offs, rework, and waiting, then things tend to break.

Reducing the steps is one of those keys to making things more robust, making things easier to do, easier to use.  And when things are easier to do, people tend to do them.  That means the people in your team, and helping them to do what you want.

So many leaders, when I speak to them, blame the people for not doing what they want them to do.  But when it comes down to it, it’s the complicated and uncertain process that causes their team to flounder.

Simplify things, and you will see incredible rewards.

Chat soon – Dave

Leadership CardsView All The Leadership Cards (48)

- or - Have the Leadership Cards delivered for your next meeting

Lean CX: Recognise Disruptors Before They Become A Reality

Lean CX, , , , , , ,

Recognise disruptors before they become a reality.

Lean CX is a step by step framework for Operational Excellence and how it relates to disruptive companies and technologies – especially as they grow and are ready to scale.

Disruptive companies are those that can deliver something a customer wants faster, cheaper, with better quality and sufficient brand recognition.  Think McDonald’s in the 1950s, the model T Ford in the early 1900s, the Apple iPod in the early 2000s or the iPhone in 2007, Uber disrupting the cab industry, Netflix disrupting DVD hire and Amazon disrupting retail.

All of them have at least three of these four in common:

Disruptive DeliveryDisruptive QualityDisruptive CostDisruptive Brand

To take advantage of these customer driven measures, crush compliance and regulation, build your start-up to scale and move toward disrupting an industry, use the step-by-step framework of Lean CX for operational excellence.

Lean CX Lean Management Operational Excellence

Get “The Lean CX Score” book by David McLachlan now, and scale your business, crush compliance and regulation, and achieve operational excellence.

The Lean CX Score Story – The Wise Man And The Emperor

Lean CX, Lean CX Book Excerpt, , , , , ,

Lean CX – The Emperor And The Wise Man

Lean CX ScoreThis is an excerpt from "The Lean CX Score."  Get your copy now and start creating disruptors that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news!  You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time.  Get the Lean CX Score now.

By now you may have heard about the Lean CX Score, and are wondering to yourself “What’s all the fuss about?”  So let’s cut to the chase.  Below are the six separate, actionable steps in the Lean CX Score.  Each one by itself can create incredible growth, profit and scalability in your team, your startup, your business and your life.  But together, they are truly the greatest secret to creating disruptive products and services in any industry – new or old.

The six Lean CX Score steps can be remembered with the acronym ROVE CP (at least that’s how I remember it).

  1. Repeatable Process
  2. One Step Flow
  3. Visual (and Audio) Management
  4. Error Proofing
  5. Check and Stop
  6. Problem Solve for Exponential Growth

The steps also become six questions, which you can use to get your point for that step.  The questions look like this:

  1. Is my customer experience the same great experience every time?
  2. Did it take only one step for my customer to get what they wanted?
  3. Can my customer understand what to do first time, without having to ask?
  4. Is it impossible to make a mistake?
  5. Is there a check to see if my customer got what they wanted?
  6. (How) do we use feedback?

If they don’t make much sense now, don’t worry.  By the time you’ve been through the stories and real life research in this book, you will be an expert on them.

Which brings us to a quick note on reading this book.  Some people may be tempted to think that they know all about these steps just by seeing the headings, or to skip ahead to the last chapter and see how their business measures up.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing – different people learn in different ways, and sometimes getting an overview (such as in Chapter Seven) can help you learn more quickly.

Just remember that each chapter has the finer details you’ll need to take things to the next level, and in skipping ahead you may miss some of those things.  Also remember that these are not the same tools you may have seen before.  I’ve made the process simpler, faster, and easier to use with a few adjustments – adjustments I’ve made by seeing the results on the actual front lines of customer service and CX over many years.  If you approach this book with an open mind, you will see some amazing things begin to happen.

You may have heard the story of the Emperor who asked the advice of the wisest man in his kingdom.  When the wise man appeared he did not speak, and instead asked for a cup, together with a saucer and some tea.  He poured the tea into the cup with great poise as the court watched with amazement, but even when the cup was full he kept pouring until tea was spilling down the sides and onto the table.

Finally the Emperor could take it no longer and yelled “Stop, stop you crazy old man!  Can’t you see that the cup is full?”

It was then the wise man stopped pouring and said: “You are like this cup – I cannot pour my wisdom because your cup is already full.  If you truly seek my council, your cup must first be empty.”

Your cup must first be empty.

If you genuinely want incredible results, start this journey with a “beginner’s mind”, where you leave your pre-conceptions at the door and your cup is able to be filled.  In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s there are few.

So read the chapters to get a full understanding, read the stories of people who have done it before, and read how they used it to win.  At the end of the book you’ll see how to rate your own business or team, and start to see the incredible rewards that good CX can bring.

Let’s do it!

More chapters from The Lean CX Score book:

Lean CX ScoreThis is an excerpt from "The Lean CX Score."  Get your copy now and start creating disruptors that completely annihilate your competition.

Oh and good news!  You'll be improving the speed, morale and engagement of your teams at the same time.  Get the Lean CX Score now.

Get the Lean CX Manifesto here:

Lean CX Manifesto