Tuesday, February 22, 2005
The Panasonic Way
The Panasonic Way
© 1989 by Toshihiko Yamashita
Upon graduation, I went to work for Matsushita Electric, then a medium-sized company of about 4,000 employees. My first assignment was a dull factory job. The work was monotonous and I was utterly bored. Then I happened to read Gorky's The Lower Depths: "If you enjoy work, life is paradise. If work is a duty, life is hell." Attitude is everything.
Until we are confident our new line of products is as good as those of our competitors, we won't put them on the market. The Matsushita philosophy is that "The mission of an enterprise is to contribute to society." Teams consist of from 5-6 members to 15. The team leader manages the operation. Adversity wondrously focuses the mind.
A company can survive only by doing work esteemed by the community. I bit the bullet and told RCA, "Matsushita can supply you with a four-hour VCR." Yet, they had not even got that on the drawing boards.
My job is to choose quickly from among alternatives, even if I make the wrong choice, because subordinates are waiting for a decision. The long march to a new product is an act of faith and courage.
People prefer face-to-face contact when they make important decisions. We need to balance impersonal technology with a personal, emotional touch. This is why, I think, Westerners write their signature on a typed letter.
"Instead of correcting an employee's inadequacies, put your efforts into getting the most of his skills." Management needs employees with a breadth of interests, contacts, and experience.
There are two approaches to motivating people: to make the employee more valuable to the company or to help him achieve his full potential. The key components of a worthwhile career are interesting assignments, decent work conditions, and good bosses.
Each person must believe, "I am doing worthwhile work that benefits the community." What are you doing? “Hauling bricks” and other person says, building a magnificent cathedral.
I've never considered myself brilliant or profound. So I have no dramatic message, no sure-fire success formula to impart to aspiring executives. I wrote this book in the hope that readers would say, "If Yamashita could do it, so can I." I think that's the lesson of my career.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0870118900
© 1989 by Toshihiko Yamashita
Upon graduation, I went to work for Matsushita Electric, then a medium-sized company of about 4,000 employees. My first assignment was a dull factory job. The work was monotonous and I was utterly bored. Then I happened to read Gorky's The Lower Depths: "If you enjoy work, life is paradise. If work is a duty, life is hell." Attitude is everything.
Until we are confident our new line of products is as good as those of our competitors, we won't put them on the market. The Matsushita philosophy is that "The mission of an enterprise is to contribute to society." Teams consist of from 5-6 members to 15. The team leader manages the operation. Adversity wondrously focuses the mind.
A company can survive only by doing work esteemed by the community. I bit the bullet and told RCA, "Matsushita can supply you with a four-hour VCR." Yet, they had not even got that on the drawing boards.
My job is to choose quickly from among alternatives, even if I make the wrong choice, because subordinates are waiting for a decision. The long march to a new product is an act of faith and courage.
People prefer face-to-face contact when they make important decisions. We need to balance impersonal technology with a personal, emotional touch. This is why, I think, Westerners write their signature on a typed letter.
"Instead of correcting an employee's inadequacies, put your efforts into getting the most of his skills." Management needs employees with a breadth of interests, contacts, and experience.
There are two approaches to motivating people: to make the employee more valuable to the company or to help him achieve his full potential. The key components of a worthwhile career are interesting assignments, decent work conditions, and good bosses.
Each person must believe, "I am doing worthwhile work that benefits the community." What are you doing? “Hauling bricks” and other person says, building a magnificent cathedral.
I've never considered myself brilliant or profound. So I have no dramatic message, no sure-fire success formula to impart to aspiring executives. I wrote this book in the hope that readers would say, "If Yamashita could do it, so can I." I think that's the lesson of my career.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0870118900
Extraordinary Guarantees
Extraordinary Guarantees
© 1993 Christopher Hart
Guarantee.
Offer a specific extraordinary guarantee to focus your company.
An extraordinary guarantee is intended to force a company to deliver excellence and to fight to win and retain customer loyalty. It sharply refocuses corporate priorities on those elements that most need fixing.
If an organization has to pay in hard dollars for its mistakes, the cost of poor quality becomes unbearable. Three choices: fix the problems, go out of business, or get rid of the guarantee.
A strong guarantee lowers a customer’s estimation of the risk of making a purchase. If customers can get their money back, then they don’t stand to lose as much if the transaction goes sour. It can help to differentiate a company from its competitors and in the process grab a significant amount of attention.
Guarantee is well suited to companies that have achieved high quality but that have not yet won a reputation for quality in their market.
People who have no problems intend to repurchase 84% of time, people who have a problem and it was resolved satisfactorily will repurchase 92% of time. People who have unresolved problem will only repurchase 46% of time. Thus, a speedy recovery is the best!
Half of all unhappy customers do not complain at all. Getting feedback from customers is the key.
Guarantees can motivate employees to achieve unprecedented levels of performance.
An unconditional guarantee of satisfaction is perhaps the most powerful. The firm unconditionally guarantees customer satisfaction or its fees need not be paid.
A specific guarantee allows company to focus attention on certain aspects of product or service. One way to manage the risk is to require customer to meet certain conditions, another way is to limit the payout for each triggering. The most is a money-back refund.
Some companies operate with an implicit guarantee.
A company can choose to shower a customer with a payout that is far more generous than any the client might have asked for, creating feelings of profound satisfaction.
Xerox approach was to solicit customer input, took into account its ability to produce quality, went beyond industry standards, directly addressed customer concerns, kept guarantee simple and easy to invoke, aligned guarantee with company priorities.
The cornerstone of a correction loop is a flow of error data, in other words, the ability to become aware of customer dissatisfaction, and preferably on as close to a real-time case-by-case basis as possible.
Every morning, management would meet for up to two hours to determine how each and every complaint would be addressed.
If the error-collection and correction loop is tight enough, problems can be ferreted out and corrected before a large number of customers become dissatisfied.
Three elements:
1) Set up process to trigger, pay out and record data on guarantee.
2) Prepare associates for guarantee.
3) Communicate guarantee to customers to maximize its impact.
Time is critical. The idea is to restore the customer’s faith in the company before he or she has a chance to develop an ingrained resentment or to move to a competitor.
A guarantee will not work without associates empowered to make decisions.
Determine how to tell customers for maximum marketing impact.
If you are not pleased with our product, service, or deliverables stated in this agreement during the first three months and we do not resolve any issues within 30 days of being notified, we offer a full money-back refund.
The goal is to communicate this with as much emotion as possible, since buying decisions are considered by many experts to be based largely on feelings rather than practical reasoning.
Some companies might want to print up the guarantee by itself as sticker, or on a wall of the establishment.
Call attention to competitor’s guarantees. Customers might even want to write a guarantee into their bid requirements.
Office of Consumer Affairs said that every dollar spent handling complaints brings in anywhere from 2-3 dollars.
Resources:
Paperback: 184 pages , Publisher: Amacom - 1993, ISBN: 0814450644
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814450644
© 1993 Christopher Hart
Guarantee.
Offer a specific extraordinary guarantee to focus your company.
An extraordinary guarantee is intended to force a company to deliver excellence and to fight to win and retain customer loyalty. It sharply refocuses corporate priorities on those elements that most need fixing.
If an organization has to pay in hard dollars for its mistakes, the cost of poor quality becomes unbearable. Three choices: fix the problems, go out of business, or get rid of the guarantee.
A strong guarantee lowers a customer’s estimation of the risk of making a purchase. If customers can get their money back, then they don’t stand to lose as much if the transaction goes sour. It can help to differentiate a company from its competitors and in the process grab a significant amount of attention.
Guarantee is well suited to companies that have achieved high quality but that have not yet won a reputation for quality in their market.
People who have no problems intend to repurchase 84% of time, people who have a problem and it was resolved satisfactorily will repurchase 92% of time. People who have unresolved problem will only repurchase 46% of time. Thus, a speedy recovery is the best!
Half of all unhappy customers do not complain at all. Getting feedback from customers is the key.
Guarantees can motivate employees to achieve unprecedented levels of performance.
An unconditional guarantee of satisfaction is perhaps the most powerful. The firm unconditionally guarantees customer satisfaction or its fees need not be paid.
A specific guarantee allows company to focus attention on certain aspects of product or service. One way to manage the risk is to require customer to meet certain conditions, another way is to limit the payout for each triggering. The most is a money-back refund.
Some companies operate with an implicit guarantee.
A company can choose to shower a customer with a payout that is far more generous than any the client might have asked for, creating feelings of profound satisfaction.
Xerox approach was to solicit customer input, took into account its ability to produce quality, went beyond industry standards, directly addressed customer concerns, kept guarantee simple and easy to invoke, aligned guarantee with company priorities.
The cornerstone of a correction loop is a flow of error data, in other words, the ability to become aware of customer dissatisfaction, and preferably on as close to a real-time case-by-case basis as possible.
Every morning, management would meet for up to two hours to determine how each and every complaint would be addressed.
If the error-collection and correction loop is tight enough, problems can be ferreted out and corrected before a large number of customers become dissatisfied.
Three elements:
1) Set up process to trigger, pay out and record data on guarantee.
2) Prepare associates for guarantee.
3) Communicate guarantee to customers to maximize its impact.
Time is critical. The idea is to restore the customer’s faith in the company before he or she has a chance to develop an ingrained resentment or to move to a competitor.
A guarantee will not work without associates empowered to make decisions.
Determine how to tell customers for maximum marketing impact.
If you are not pleased with our product, service, or deliverables stated in this agreement during the first three months and we do not resolve any issues within 30 days of being notified, we offer a full money-back refund.
The goal is to communicate this with as much emotion as possible, since buying decisions are considered by many experts to be based largely on feelings rather than practical reasoning.
Some companies might want to print up the guarantee by itself as sticker, or on a wall of the establishment.
Call attention to competitor’s guarantees. Customers might even want to write a guarantee into their bid requirements.
Office of Consumer Affairs said that every dollar spent handling complaints brings in anywhere from 2-3 dollars.
Resources:
Paperback: 184 pages , Publisher: Amacom - 1993, ISBN: 0814450644
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814450644
