How Do You Make Your Quality Initiatives Achieve Results And Last? Respect Your Customers!!

Several years ago, there was a resurgence in organizations on emphasizing quality and the overall cost savings associated with a good quality program. The Six Sigma movement grew in immense popularity as it hit the mainstream with Jack Welch and GE. Corporate executives had been able to put a quantifiable value on quality and they wanted to realize those returns. We saw the creation of the Lean Six Sigma initiative. Because if you focused on leaning out your business processes while you focus on the quality of those business processes, you must get even better returns on your investment, right? While this may be true in some instances, the staying power of the solution has never been adequately addressed. Yes, most organizations connect performance metrics and continuous process improvement (CPI) methodologies to their business processes. However, no one really addresses the underlying issue, “why do we really care about quality?” The answer should be “because we respect our customers.”

The real issue at hand is why do we want to focus on quality and performance excellence in the first place. If you look at most organizations 3-5 years after they have instituted some form of lean six sigma improvements, you will see their promised efficiency rate of returns either never fully materialized; or if they did, they dissipated dramatically from the initial levels. If the organization was mature enough to put into place effective metrics to adequately capture the efficiency of their efforts, they can see this effect if they look. Most organizations that are sold the proverbial “snake oil” see that the promised returns never really materialized or if they did initially, they caused harm elsewhere in their organization and reverted to their old processes. Why is this the case?

The reason is twofold:

1.    The organization did not address systemic issues when they tried to apply the lean six sigma practices. Instead they played “whack a mole” and just tried to hammer/club down the annoyance or bad actor that popped up. If you squeeze a balloon, in contracts in one area and it expands in a different direction. The same happens within organizations and federal agencies. They never considered what was causing the bad actor or annoyances to make themselves known in the first place. When they saw another bad actor or annoyance pop up elsewhere, they tried to club it down. I have written previously on the concept of systemic issues in my “Cinnamon” article series. In those we talked about having to address the root cause of issues to achieve success. 

2.    They did not address the root corporate cultural issues with respect to quality. This is the topic of this paper and probably the most important factor when it comes to producing Business Process Reengineering (BPR) solutions that stand the test of time. An organization MUST know and respect their customers. And every organization must understand that they have two types of customers: internal and external. If they cannot understand and appreciate this concept, no Lean Six Sigma or BPR effort will ever last in their organization.

While we all want to enjoy the fiscal benefits, or reducing waste in re-work, returns, and warranty adherence. I want to focus on the fundamental issue of respect for your customer. In the end, it is your customer base, internal and external, that sees your quality failures and your performance variations. Until you can build a culture in your organization that focuses on quality not because it will save you money but because you respect the recipient of the product/service, you will forever be pushing a rock uphill with your staff. As soon as you reduce pressure, the rock will slide back downhill along with your quality.

Corporations and government organizations exist to serve their customers. Without your customer base, your corporation or government organization would serve no purpose nor realize any revenue and profit. This is a critical core belief that must be instilled in your leadership teams and employees when you address quality. The issue must be understood that if we can’t provide the expected level of quality products or services to our customers, they will seek those same products or services elsewhere. The result is you and your employees will then find yourselves out of a job. Your company will fail. It is the fundamental theory of a free market.

I personally have run into organizations that don’t understand this when I am the customer. We all have and we all behave the same way. For me, most recently, it was with a high-end hotel chain. The company made a significant mistake and sent an email to all of its guests who were due to stay at the hotel during a certain time to alert them of a reduction of guest services. The idea was a noble one. However, instead of using the “BCC” function of email to hide the other email recipients, they just dumped all the emails into the “To” line. Anyone who received the email knew who was going to be staying at the hotel, their contact info, and when they were going to be there. A data breach had just occurred and someone inside the hotel was responsible. In a moment of what I believe to be panic (oh no, what did I just do?), they tried to recall the original message. However, the root cause was not considered (they sent the emails to everyone using the “To” function). This resulted in emphasizing the fact that they just realized a data breach and they broadcast the personal information a second time to the entire distribution list in case anyone missed it the first time. It had about 400 people on it. We will come back to this situation in a little bit.

While we all know mistakes/poor quality can occur, it is important how an organization immediately deals with the issue. I don’t need to remind everyone how poorly United’s CEO came across after their debacle with the oversold flight. I point again to my hypothesis that respect for your customer must be at the core of your culture. If you truly respect your customer you empathize with them. You try to see things from their perspective. This drives your behavior to prevent disappointment felt by your customer and allows you to very consciously put into place quality programs that are preventative in nature. It also helps you put into context your response programs for your frontline supervisors and managers. If they understand the value that senior leadership puts on customer relations, they will react appropriately or understand when they face the consequences of running afoul of the corporate culture. Had a customer respect culture been present at United, the front-line employees would never have escalated the situation the way they did.

Let’s be honest, if the United CEO truly respected his customers, he would have been appalled by the incident that involved a customer being drug off a plane, bloodied, and screaming. Instead of feeling and demonstrating empathy, he, under the advice of his team, went to “legal defense mode” first and non-admittance of fault. It wasn’t until 24 hours later when he was getting lambasted in the press and on social media, along with a $1 Billion reduction in stock value that he came back to try and show remorse. It is clear he does not respect his customers but merely fears fallout from his shareholders. In the end this will lead to degradation in corporate revenues and a continued underlying culture within his organization that the customer is merely someone who must be “tolerated” not respected. United Airlines will be forever synonymous with intolerance and disrespect. It will take decades to remove the stigma.

Now let’s return to my hotel story. The day after the data breach the hotel manager made a hollow gesture to apologize to the distribution list, downplaying the incident through a very generic and disingenuous email. I will give him credit that at least he used the “BCC” function this time. I responded back to the manager expressing my displeasure and pointing out the fact that his version of the data breach was far more “rosy” than reality and that he needed to do something to reinstate my faith in his hotel. I demanded he respect my right to privacy and properly address my concerns. That email went 48 hours and I received no response. This further cemented the notion that the hotel manager did not respect me. So, I re-engaged by resending my original email and alerted the manager that I was contacting the parent corporation and that my wife, who was also a travel agent, would be sure to alert her network of how we were being treated. This did get the attention of the hotel manager and he responded with an attempt to coordinate a call. He asked a good time to call. Like many of you, I do not fully own my days. My schedule is a mix of corporate, client, and employee meetings. I have very limited free space in my calendar for anyone other than my wife and kids. I responded back to the hotel manager the free space in my calendar the next day. He finally called, 20 minutes past the agreed upon time whilst my attention had been taken to another higher priority issue. So, he again transmitted to me that my time is not as valuable as his and that he can call within 30 minutes of an agreed upon call time and I should be thankful. 

Wait a second! That isn’t right! Without me and others like me, the hotel would not be in business and he would not have a job. He literally has a job because people like me spend money at his establishment to spend the night. There is no other reason for his job. However, his personal culture and that of his chain, apparently, must be one that just tolerates the customer instead of respecting them. 

We have seen this play out many times in the past. We have a grocery store that is very near my house. The neighbors and I call it “Soviet Store” as it never has any selection of food; akin to the breadlines in Leningrad during WWII. They literally ran out of milk one day. How does that even happen in America? How can a grocery store, located in an affluent suburb of Washington DC run out of milk? That question is more rhetorical than anything else. We know why. Because the store’s culture does not respect their customers and therefore they don’t put into place preventative quality measures to ensure they don’t run out of the necessities.

Let’s just say that the grocery store had a series of circumstances they could not control that led to the milk shelves being barren. 

I have another example with the same store. My wife and I went shopping on a Saturday night for some things for dinner. It was in the summer (an important fact) and we were going to make some fresh Caprese salad. I walked by the produce section and saw the tomatoes pictured in the beginning of this article. I was appalled. Again, how does a grocery store in an affluent suburb of Washington DC, in the middle of peak tomato season, allow for a display to have numerous rotten pieces? I went up to the store manager. I introduced myself and he sort of knew me already as he sees me often in the store. I asked him if he went through the store periodically to inspect things. He assured me that he made regular rounds to make sure everything was just fine. I said, “really?” in an accusatory/snarky sort of tone of the middle-aged guy getting ready to prove a point. He assured me he really walked through the store often to conduct ad hoc inspections.

Well, that was just too good to pass up. I asked him to accompany me as we took a walk through the produce section. I did not take him to the tomatoes. Instead I brought him to the mushrooms. I had spotted a package of mushrooms a few days earlier that were completely moldy and I had watched it every day to see if the produce manager would find the package. I showed the package of mushrooms to the store manager and he acted appalled and apologetic. He said he would take care of that right away thinking he was done with me. I then asked him to accompany me to the tomatoes. I showed him the stack of tomatoes with the rotten pieces. I asked him again, how often do you walk through the store? At this point he just wanted to be done with me. So, I expressed my concern and lack of faith in his produce and his quality measures. I have never bought another piece of produce in that store ever again and we continually warn people of the same. The store's brand and reputation is about as low as it can go in our town. What does that cost the grocery chain across the market as social media allows for displeasure to be instantly shared?

Here is another example. This time about a public entity. As many of you are aware the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has been having some significant issues over the past few years with quality in maintenance and upkeep of infrastructure. The unions blame management. Management blames the budget. In the end, several people have been hurt and even died in mishaps and, but for the grace of God, were some other mishaps narrowly avoided by lucky circumstance not proactive measures. Things are so bad with WMATA that their “call to action” right now is “Back to good”. They honestly believe that striving to get back to good they will fix what ails them. Can you imagine a for-profit organization saying they are going to strive for “good”? There is no mention of excellence or greatness or best in class just “good”. A commercial CEO would be summarily removed and kicked to the curb for such an atrocious approach. However, in a publicly funded organization, we give literal meaning to “good enough for government work”. So, as you can imagine WMATA is ripe for issues with quality and lack of focus on customer satisfaction.

What is completely obvious to me is that WMATA does not understand that they have a customer base that they must satisfy; not to mention a responsibility for safety of its employees and customer. Instead, as with other government organizations, they believe they can make up for revenue lost due to lost customers with more public funds. We are not holding them accountable for their poor actions.

Look at the photo above. I ride the Metro regularly. For those who have not had the pleasure, many Metro stations have parking garages that you pay a daily rate to park your car. If you want to be guaranteed to find a parking spot, you can pay an extra monthly fee to allow you to park in a reserved spot. I pay that extra fee so that when I am running a little late, I know I can find a parking spot. Now these spots are paid for by customers. They are literally paying double to use those spots. And as with any sort of parking structure there are also spots that are reserved for maintenance folks and law enforcement. However, in the garage I use, the reserved customer spots are some of the closer spots to the actual Metro terminal. Now the picture above was taken after the Metro truck was parked in that same spot for 4 days straight. The truck would move during the later part of the day so it was not broken down. On each occasion, there was an empty spot reserved for maintenance. But since the worker did not respect the customer, he/she took the reserved customer spot away from the paying customer so the maintenance folks could save a few steps walking because the maintenance spot was farther away from the station than the customer space. 

When you are trying to “get back to good” and you can’t even deliver a reserved parking spot, let alone safe and on-time trains, what does that say about your quality culture? So, I shared the photo via social media and it was retweeted with some very sarcastic comments. WMATA failed to respond as I would have expected.

On the fifth day, I approached a MetroTransit Police Officer. I explained to the officer on duty that I was sure the illegal parking of a Metro maintenance truck was not high on the “crimes they really get excited list”. I pleaded to the officer that I was just trying to get some resolution to the parking offense that was preventing paying customers from being able to get what they were contractually guaranteed to receive. Instead of taking matters into her own hands, the MetroTransit Police Officer directed me to call the customer complaint line and send an email. So again, an individual who is paid to enforce laws tells me to file a complaint via email. The MetroTransit Police officer went back upon her busy day chatting with the station manager as I walked away. 

I offer at the core of their issues, they do not have a culture that respects their customers nor recognizes that they are a service entity that needs to accommodate the needs of those paying them. If WMATA Leadership’s focus were to shift to quality because of customer respect, I offer their workforce might respond and that ridership would dramatically increase.

The next time you are with your leadership team or your client engagement team, ask yourselves, “do we respect our customers?” If you don’t, you must first work on that before you start to pull data and create control charts! Because no quality initiative you come up with will last.