Bad Process...Lost Customer (Me!)...Lost Revenue

I would like to share a personal story about processes and process control, and how customers can be lost, forever, with concrete and significant financial impacts.

Coffee has long been important to me, ever since I started working night shifts at a bakery when I was a teenager. I enjoy getting good coffee beans and making a quality cup of coffee. I was a loyal customer of a local coffee roaster for several years and all was going smoothly. I try to buy from local businesses when I have the opportunity; it seems like the right thing to do. One day, my coffee started tasting odd, kind of sour, and I wondered what was going on. I cleaned out both my coffee maker and grinder and made sure that they were operating properly. I also got some other coffee beans, ground them, and made a pot of coffee, and it was fine. So, I was convinced the problem wasn’t on my end. I had “Split the Universe” and the problem was elsewhere. I suspected the coffee beans were the source of the problem. My next step was to see what the coffee roaster thought was going on. I was buying big bags of coffee, 5 pounds each. I took what remained of this big bag of coffee bean to the roaster and asked him what he thought was going on. After some discussion with the roasting expert, he thought the roasting temperature might be “off”. No explanation was given to how much the temperature was off or why it was off. They adjusted the roasting temperature and roasted some more beans for me to try. The coffee I made with the beans was acceptable, but it did not seem to be as good as it used to be. I was satisfied with the quality of the coffee beans and moved on. Keep in mind, I was solving their problem, and I was not impressed that I had to be doing it: I only wanted a good cup of coffee. Soon I needed some more coffee beans, so I stopped buy the roaster and purchased another 5 pound bag. To my complete disappointment, the coffee I made with this bag of beans was just a sour as original bad bag of beans I had complained to the roaster about. I strongly suspected they had (again) lost control the roasting temperature, even after we had talked about it! I never bought anything more from that local coffee roaster, nor did I tell them that they had lost control of their process again. Their process was simple: roasting time and temperature, but they could not control it. Who knows how many other customers they lost? I was spending about $500 a year at that coffee roaster. Over a five year period, I had spent thousands of dollars there. Now I no longer did business with them, and they still do not even know the whole story. They probable never noticed I was gone. They never followed up with me. Other customers of the local roaster very well may have had the same problem; I would be surprised if they had not. Now I purchase my coffee from a major national supplier, they seem to have stable processes and consistent coffee. I have no coffee supply problems any longer, but the local roaster will absolutely not get business from me in the future. He has wasted too much of my time, and he has not improved a bit. I think this is a great example of how even simple processes are not simple to run consistently day in and day out. The complexity of this roasting process is trivial compared to any significant industrial process I have worked on. However, the same principles apply. Key variables must be understood and controlled. Error proofing schemes must be developed and implemented and used consistently to make the process bulletproof. Importantly, you must know when your customers are unhappy and have solid metrics to measure this, consistently, on an ongoing basis.

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YOUR CHALLENGE THIS WEEK Please reflect on: How do you really know your key processes are always making your customers happy? What customer-centric metrics and measures are in place on your key processes? Can you produce a snapshot of your process health on-demand, to convince both you and your customers of the “health” of your key processes?

I’d enjoy hearing about your experiences with “simple” process that ultimately end up being much more complex and challenging. As always, you can just email me and I’ll get back to you promptly.

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