What happens after the customer clicks the “Place Order Button”?  For some customers, this is a large black hole.  But, wise companies understand that customers need to be informed and aware of the steps after the “Place Order Button” is clicked.  In fact, customers want to be involved in the end-to-end transaction.  In this article, we’ll discuss how we can better satisfy this critical customer need, thereby ensuring repeat-business, loyalty, and also good, old fashioned, customer happiness.

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Think about the metrics in your company: most likely, the metrics that you are accountable for and report on are reported as averages.  Am I right?  Perhaps, those metrics are averages and are lagging or leading, depending on the context.  

But, from the customer’s perspective, it is always important to remember this axiom: The Customer Feels the difference in the experience, not the average.  If you stop to really think about it, the concept of an “average experience” doesn’t exist.  Yet, we report on statistical means.  

The distinction, from a mathematical perspective, is simple: it’s about variation.

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I’d venture to say that most products and services are bloated with features that customers most likely don’t care for;  I’ve been part of product development teams where the focus is on features, with an implicit goal to stuffing as many features as possible — in consumer packaged goods and in software.   This is the wrong approach to developing memorable and sticky products.

The above statement might be best described by Kathy Sierra’s Featuritis Curve:

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You are cordially invited to a pretty cool Lean Six Sigma Summit (PDF Brochure Download) to be held on April 28 - May 2, 2008.   There will also be a behind-the-scenes tour of United Airlines and a peek into their Lean Deployment.  I’m really looking forward to that.  I’ll be speaking at the event, along with other, much-more distinguished folks, whose names are below:

Richard P. Miller
President and CEO
VIRTUA HEALTH

Lee Cockerell
Former Executive Vice
President of Operations
THE WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT

Russell W. Ford
President and CEO
PRESTOLITE ELECTRIC INCORPORATED

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A friend of mine recently contacted me, seeking my advice on how to get a job at Amazon.com; my friend is a top-notch software engineer, manager, and an all-around good person and leader.  The job he is interested in is for a position as a software development manager in reverse-logistics at Amazon.com.  My friend qualifies on most items, except for the last bullet below, requiring experience in Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma — for a software engineering job!:

Qualifications

• Substantive experience building innovative, complex software, ideally but not necessarily web based systems

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