You made it. You invested lots of time from your busy schedule to reach the last chapter of this book. You have acquired throughout these pages the process on how to make a better product to delight your customer. Perhaps you even jotted down some notes, and now you can see how your thinking has evolved. The new way of observing your customer through this lens creates a better focused product.
Back in Chapter 1, we explored the map to know what the journey will be and evaluated the possible routes that connect point A to B. We took time to study the trip. That same commitment of understanding the customer within a framework of the Houses of Quality (HOQs) helped us peer deeper into our product offering, market we serve, and companies we compete with. If you followed this book all along, you are now a stronger player in your field; you took the time to go slow to go fast. Consider yourself a strategist when you apply these tools.
To maintain this new way of defining your product, consider updating your HOQ annually. You may also update the Kano analysis and other tools at this time. Keep in mind that your viewpoint includes your customer, competitor, and the dynamics of the market. Perhaps, insert this exercise as part of your strategic plan. Prior to the strategic plan review, divide and conquer the components of all metrics by business functions, and as part of the strategic plan, review the data with all the business leaders. This will bring a new holistic, proactive view of the product in front of the entire business team.
We have shared earlier that the customer speaks in the language of their industry, or if it is an end user, they may speak the experience they perceive. It is for these reasons, we have learned how to capture customer comments in HOQ1 and later place these in HOQ2, the Translation house.
The following example has made a strong impression on me, so much so, that I still remember the cold Michigan day back in March 2000. I received an email from our quality manager that epitomizes the importance of listening to the Voice of the Customer. Maybe the story is true or maybe it isn’t, but the lesson learned was to take seriously what the customer described even if their terminology seemed unsophisticated. Here’s the email I received:
A complaint was received by the Pontiac Division of General Motors:
This is the second time I have written you, and I don’t blame you for not answering me, because I kind of sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of ice cream for dessert after dinner each night. But the kind of ice cream varies so, every night, after we’ve eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream we should have and I drive down to the store to get it. It’s also a fact that I recently purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips to the store have created a problem. You see, every time I buy vanilla ice cream, when I start back from the store my car won’t start. If I get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine. I want you to know I’m serious about this question, no matter how silly it sounds: ‘What is there about a Pontiac that makes it not start when I get vanilla ice cream, and easy to start whenever I get any other kind?’
The Pontiac President was understandably skeptical about the letter but sent an engineer to check it out anyway. The latter was surprised to be greeted by a successful, obviously well-educated man in a fine neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the two hopped into the car and drove to the ice cream store. It was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came back to the car, it wouldn’t start.
The engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, the man got chocolate. The car started. The second night, he got strawberry. The car started. The third night, he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start.
Now the engineer, being a logical man, refused to believe that this man’s car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He arranged, therefore, to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem. And toward this end he began to take notes: he jotted down all sorts of data, time of day, type of gas used, time to drive back and forth, etc.
In a short time, he had a clue: the man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store.
Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pick up. All the other flavors were kept in the back of the store at a different counter where it took considerably longer to find the flavor and get checked out.
Now the question for the engineer was why the car wouldn’t start when it took less time. Once time became the problem—not the vanilla ice cream—the engineer quickly came up with the answer: vapor lock. It was happening every night, but the extra time taken to get the other flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapor lock to dissipate.
Moral of the story: even insane-looking problems are sometimes real.
I included this story because it took time to understand the problem. It took time to go slow to go fast. I was also informed that this event triggered a recall to fix the affected Pontiac vehicles, and they were reconfigured to minimize the vapor lock issue which prevented the engine from starting. Again, fact or fiction, it is a great story to put in perspective that customers may not speak the language as eloquently as the supplier may want.
A police officer (now turned deacon) once said, when you have facts, you have true statements. It reflects that reality. When you combine facts, now you have a story. Using that thinking on our situation, when you have metrics, you have true values of the property. Now combining several properties and functionalities, you have a unique product. We showed how the Voice of the Customer gave us the facts we needed to modify throughout our organization. That is what we have done throughout this book: hearing the Voice of the Customer on the factory floor.
Enjoy the journey!