I would like to share yet another example of an improvement effort (Kaizen) that did not involve the customer and turned out to be complete Waste. I had the privilege of working for a client in the medical devices business. Without giving too much away they have a technology that allows a patient to wear a tiny mobile device that reads every heart beat and sends it back in real time to a central monitoring station. After a week or two of collecting data my client then provides the patent's doctor with days worth of detailed data that can then be used to make accurate diagnoses.
One particular engagement with this client involved their Help Desk. These are the people who answer the phones 24/7 whenever a patient has a problem that needs to be resolved. Those of you who read my blogs will immediately recognize a Lean gold mine when you read it. Sadly this was not the case at first for this client. For them the Help Desk was simply a part of their process. As opposed to a continual feed of invaluable customer feedback on Value and Waste.
But as I said we were not there to mine this data but rather to help cut costs for the company. And that meant understanding why the calls were coming in, prioritizing the most frequent causes and eliminate them in order to reduce call volumes. I'm not saying I'm necessarily proud of everything I have done in the past. But my heart is always in the right place.
It did not take us long to put call logs in place that allowed Help Desk operators to simply tick off the root cause for each inbound call on a check list (I love check lists) they helped us create. After a week or so we had thousands of data points and immediately we saw that "Leads not sticking" accounted for 19% or almost one in five calls.
We sat down with some of the people in the call centre and asked for help interpreting the results. Not surprisingly they were not surprised. "Of course that's our number one reason for calls. Everyone thinks the wet wipes are to clean their skin." I should mention that when the kit shows up at the patent's home they are required to stick four leads to their chest and abdomen and then attach tiny wires. It turns out included in the kit is a small square packet that looks exactly like a wet wipe you would get when you order chicken wings at a greasy restaurant. Not surprisingly the first thing patients do is open the wet wipe and clean their skin before adhering the leads. Makes sense.
Unless you actually read the instructions and find out that the wet wipe is actually a solvent to help clean off the glue from the leads after the monitoring is finished and you are removing the leads. So wiping your skin first has the effect of making the leads not stick. Hence the 1 in 5 calls to the Help Desk complaining that the leads are not sticking.
Not being medical experts ourselves we respectfully asked the question "....so why do you include the wet wipes in the kit in the first place if this is what happens?"
We were told that the folks at the Help Desk (who listen to the Voice of the Customer all day long) had been telling the folks in Operations to please take the wet wipes out of the kit because of this exact problem. They didn't even need a call log to know this. But they were repeatedly told by the Operations folks that the wet wipes were necessary to help patients clean off the glue residue after the testing was finished.
Again not being medical experts we respectfully asked "....well they have a point, don't they? I mean people probably would want to have a way to clean the glue off after they removed the leads."
And here again we were told by those who listen to the Voice of the Customer all day and all night long that most patients have already used the wet wipe to make the leads not stick in the first place so they have nothing to clean off the glue anyway. If someone does call the Help Desk with this complaint all they do is recommend the patients use a wash cloth and warm soapy water which is just as effective at removing the glue.
We took our information to the VP Operations who was responsible for both areas within the company and explained our findings. He brought in the heads of both areas and put the idea in front of them. After a brief discussion the decision was made to take the wet wipes out of the patient kits starting the next day.
I don't have to tell you the effects were immediate. Fortunately for us as consultants there was a very short cycle time between the time the kits were packed and the patients received them. That meant that within three to four days we saw a dramatic drop in inbound calls - almost 20% to be exact. And you guessed it almost all the calls regarding leads not sticking immediately went away.
The lesson is this: at some point the company made the decision to add wet wipes to the patient packages because it "seemed" like something the patients would Value. And from the point of view of the company this made sense. However they did not listen to the Voice of the Customer even when the customer called them hundreds of times a week to verify whether or not they had added any Value or Waste. And even when one in five calls from customers told them that they had added Waste they still did not listen. They took their own perception of Value and Waste over the opinion of their customers.
This is a lesson in just how difficult it is to overcome internal perceptions and let go of everything you assume is Value. I recently concluded an online poll where 51% of people responded that the customer is the one who decides whether a task is Value or Waste and just 1 in 10 felt the front line staff could make the distinction. And in a related poll I am currently conducting I ask how many improvement initiatives directly involve the customer so far 100% of respondents say they do just this.
Now I find it hard to believe that 100% of the time people directly involve their customers, especially given I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen this done effectively in practice. And to demonstrate this I have a 3rd poll where I ask people how they engage their customers for feedback. Someone please explain to me why after two weeks of having the 3rd poll open only a tenth the number of people have responded as answered the first.
Even if you think you directly involve your customers because you think you know how your customers feel, do yourself a favour and ask anyway. I guarantee that you will be shocked, amazed, and ultimately far more successful if you do.
@leanmind
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