Concerning 

Manufacturing Specifications and Testing (week of 7 May 07) 


Jim 

I am replying on last week's NI. This week you said folks bailed due to the article, most likely the "guilty parties". I thought you were right on point. 

Larry Wells 
Atlanta, Georgia, USA 

*** 

Hi Jim, 

So hmmm, I thought that the May 7 NI was right on. Your comment in today's NI about the reader churn surprised me a little because from my experience the May 7 NI was accurate and realistic. I have witnessed labs used as clubs for nearly my entire career. 

Have a great day, 

(name withheld) 
Ohio, USA 

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Concerning 

Service (week of 14 May 07) 

Good morning, Jim. 

I believe Roger Bannister was the first man to run a four-minute mile. 

Cheers, 

Dale St. Peter Domtar, Port Huron Mill 
Port Huron, Michigan, USA 

*** 

As each of us that have worked in a mill, we should be respectful of the position each holds. We were all suppliers to other departments and the quality of the service and products we produced was constantly under scrutiny by the recipients. As a Chemical recovery supt, the recausticizing area was constantly measuring the quality of our green liquor, the power department was constantly recording the flow and temperature of the steam we produced to drive the turbines and so on. We were all in the quality control business whether we liked it or not. 

Thanks for your comments. 

Tommy Surles 
Pensacola, Florida, USA 

***

Jim, 

Two things: 

1. How are you doing? I hope you’re still on the healing track and continuing to make good progress. Know that you are in my prayers here. 

2. I really enjoyed your “Nip Impressions” on service. I believe that customers are pretty-much like other people…..even me! In nearly everything I buy from gasoline to doughnuts, from shirts to sheets, from lawnmower parts to building supplies I have preferred suppliers. There are no poor-service providers on my preferred suppliers list. Good, that is effective, efficient, and ever-available service is the ante to get in my buying game. I may let you in on a pitch or a promise one time, but from there on, its delivery over sales pitch. So if all my preferred suppliers provide my desired level of service, how do I decide which one to use on a specific item? Well, if service is all about the same, then I go to the higher value one (not lower cost necessarily). However in the case where service has been uniquely superb, I will call him first and if the price is acceptable, no one else will get a call. Then the challenge for a supplier is to determine the definition of “uniquely superb service” and there is only ONE way to do that----ask your customer!! 

In one of his books Ken Blanchard tells of a bank wanting to grow their business at a particular branch. They found, by asking customers exiting several banks, why they chose to their business there. When they took out unchangeables such as location, the key factor was “pleasant and friendly tellers”. They then surveyed exiting customers to determine if they had had pleasant and friendly service and if so, what made it pleasant and friendly. Two factors came out; 

• “pleasant” was over 90% of the time connected with a smile on the face of the people the customer talked with 
• “friendly” was similarly over 90% of the time connected with the customer being called by name by the teller! 

The bank then trained their tellers and lobby employees to maintain a smile whenever possible and always when interfacing with a customer. Further they trained their tellers to be aware of the person’s name (get if off the deposit/withdrawal slip, the check, or whatever) EVERY time and use their name at least once during the transaction. 

The bank had already completed one customer satisfaction survey of exiting customers; several weeks after the training was complete, they did it again. I don’t recall the exact data, but there was significant improvement in both customer satisfaction and business activity. 

Suppliers who realize that the real reason they are in business is to please a customer to the point that he will share his hard-earned cash with them in exchange for total value proposition they offer will stay in business when others likely will not. 

Keep writing. 

Good health, my friend. 

Ed Turner 
Houston, Texas, USA 

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Thanks, Ed. See this week’s column re: health. 

Jim 

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