Complaint

Solution

Result

“Our managers can’t relate to younger staff”

Performance metrics developed.  Communication coaching and team alignment sessions held.

Retention increased 85%, quality of service, motivation and performance improved greatly.

“We can’t figure out why our Customers are not happy”

Customer needs analyzed.  Customer service coaching for staff delivered and customer questionnaire developed.

Customer satisfaction increased 45% in 6 months.  Repeat business up 75% and referrals up 35%

“We are making too many trips in a day”

Delivery vehicles, order picking and staging all redesigned.  Routes and order queues analyzed.  Optimal strategies developed.

Deliveries per trip increased 22%.  Distance traveled reduced by 57%.  Picking time reduced 75%

“We can’t retain staff”

Measured staff engagement and worked with management to design a “staff connection” program.  Developed a training tracking system, and created more cross-training opportunities

Reduction in turnover from 75% to 15% in one year.  60% of training budget freed up and directed towards existing staff.  Overtime reduced by 68% and downtime reduced by 42%.

“Our staff are unhappy”

Engagement measured.  Team building and staff connection programs delivered. Cross-department communication employed..

Staff satisfaction increased, fewer arguments and gossip.  Productivity up.  Happier customers.

“We have too many sick days”

Absentee causes analysed and hand washing course for office staff delivered.  Flex-day / Abstenteeism / Presenteeism policy developed.

Efficiency Increased Sick days reduced by 36% in first year.  Staff reported less stress and more effective time off.

“Our safety program is taking too long to role out”

Prioritized project modules for earlier payback.  Created communication system.  Developed participants into champions and disseminated ownership of results among team.

Project brought in on time and budget.  Earlier payback, better motivation to continue and succeed.

“We have too many financial controls”

Analyzed financial controls using risk-based methodology. Assigned ownership of each to person with influence.

Reduced total financial controls by 62%.

“Our administrative department spends all day doing paperwork”

Documentation reviewed, justified and culled.  Data was centralized.  Entry templates and quality standards were developed and rolled out..

Reduction of information collected by 35%.  100% utilization of remaining paperwork.

“We can’t manage our inventory”

Mapped current practices and identified weaknesses.  Improved trace-ability of stock, inter department communication.  Identified true costs of excess inventory and worked to remove non-value-added activities

Order fulfilment increased.  Inventory staff stress level was decreased.  Inventory was reduced by 17%

“We are writing off too much inventory every quarter, because we don’t know where it went”

Physical inventory control adopted.  Procurement centralized.  Introduced cycle-counting, standards of cleanliness and organization. Reduced inventories, Optimized stock / equipment levels

Inventory is accurately billed to jobs.  Accurate tracking of demand has allowed forecasting. Tied-up capital reduced by 16%.

“Our customers are constantly making last minute changes to their order”

Increased customer understanding of Business Process and their role in meeting timelines.  Outline key dates and decision points and deliverables for the client.

Total number of costly “last minute customer changes” drop from average of 10/month to less than 8/year.

“We don’t have enough information to anticipate problems or changes in our business”

Defined key performance indicators.  Increased communication through mediation and enrolment of suppliers and customers.  Increase agility and responsiveness of business unit to act on customer and supplier requests.

Easier to anticipate changes in demand and plan for them.  Staffing, Training and infrastructure could now be prepared ahead of time. Unwarranted panic can now be avoided.

“The quality of our product is inconsistent”

Introduced Total Quality Management and Six Sigma principles.  Taught and coached basic statistical sampling skills.  Developed sampling tests and stations.  Developed reporting documentation.

Complaints, penalties and refunds are down by half.  Production is continually getting simpler and more reliable.  Employees are generating more ideas and implementing solutions.

“We can’t get follow-through on commitments”

Introduced tracking methods for monitoring team member progress.  Created template to clearly outlined who must deliver the result and who is the beneficiary of the result, define exactly what success means and make all progress easy to benchmark..

Projects are more successful because customer expectations are known.  Employees are delivering results. 
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