Key Points

• Lean Six Sigma is equipped with all the tools you’ll need to have happy customers.
• Any organization should focus on timeliness and quality when developing its products.
• Customer needs will change, so make sure you’re paying attention to the Voice of the Customer.

How do you build a customer-centric organization? When we focus on the methodologies, technology, and processes hard at work, we lose sight of how to make an organization work first for customers. However, customers are vital to any organization’s well-being, as they drive market trends and ultimately dictate what we make.

With that in mind, you’ve got everything you need to build a customer-centric organization when using the methodology and tools given through Lean Six Sigma. Today, we’ll be taking a closer look at how to leverage these tools to better aid in driving your business toward a people-first approach.

Putting Customers First

The lifeblood of any organization is its customers. Whether you’re promoting your services or goods, there is an intended audience for said outputs. As such, given how highly competitive and contentious most market segments are, it means varying your approach. What do you offer that your competitors falter with?

Now, given most of the buzz we read on social media, the news, and elsewhere, there is a definite need for customer-centric organizations. Putting the customer front and center at the start of any project is a great way to hone in on what is needed from your organization when it comes time to ship deliverables.

In the past, we’ve discussed the likes of Voice of the Customer and other principles. These certainly are worth heeding when developing products, but you can take everything a step further when implementing the practices and methodologies touted by Lean Six Sigma.

What This Means for Any Organization

A customer-centric organization is one that is currying favor and loyalty by listening intently to their customers. Think for a moment about your mechanic. Would you favor a mechanic that obfuscates the work done, doesn’t communicate, and leaves you frustrated by a lack of transparency? I certainly wouldn’t, and that is a very customer-centric field of work.

Putting customers first doesn’t mean you’re letting them take the driver’s seat or even that they’re dictating the production. Instead, you’re listening to what is needed, observing trends, and so forth. At the end of the day, this results in happy and loyal customers.

Certainly beats playing a guessing game as to how to make an impact in your market segment, doesn’t it?

Utilizing Lean Six Sigma for a Customer-Centric Organization

With all the previous points in mind, how do you build a customer-centric organization? Well, if you’re already in the Lean Six Sigma fold, you’re well on your way to customer excellence. If not, well then there’s never been a better time to start getting the legwork done to get your organization started with the Lean Six Sigma way of life.

There are a multitude of reasons as to why you’d want to use LSS in your organization. However, when looking at how to best serve your customers, let’s hone in on some of the principles and tools that make a definite mark in customer relations.

Continual Improvements

Lean Six Sigma, much like its forebear, is a methodology that centers on a culture of continuous improvement. You’re chasing a standard, an ideal if you will, and that means the work is never done when it comes to improving processes, making work more efficient, and so forth.

When building a customer-centric organization, Lean Six Sigma is a handy means of reducing lead times while improving the overall work done by your employees. You want quality, speed, and efficacy when dealing with any outputs, and that is certainly doable with the right mindset.

Elimination of Waste

Waste is a key focus in any Lean Six Sigma project. Any project is going to have waste; that’s just the nature of doing work. However, it is up to you and your team to look for ways to reduce said waste. When doing so, you’re passing not only savings on to your customers but also guaranteeing quality outputs.

Further, waste comes in all shapes and sizes. It might be something like an excess of material that goes unused in the production line. It could even be just a higher amount of lag time between workstations as the final product is being prepared for shipping.

Whatever it may be, it is paramount that you look for ways to reduce this waste. This ties right into the previous point. A culture of continuous improvement will seldom focus on maintaining the status quo. If you’re building a customer-centric organization, you’ll have to be nimble, and your organization will have to adapt to the needs and pitfalls of any project.

Increasing Customer Satisfaction

A satisfied customer is likely to return in the future to your organization’s products. So, how do you increase satisfaction in a customer-centric organization? Well, you can listen to the Voice of the Customer. Pain points will arise with any product or service. Addressing these issues is a great way of paying closer attention to the needs and wants of your customers.

Gathering this data, along with things like suggestions for new features, can be done in a few different ways. Popular means of market research for the sake of data can include customer surveys, focus groups, and paying attention to social media posts in your market segment.

Paying attention to the criteria your customers expect when looking at Critical to Quality is also an excellent way of increasing overall satisfaction.

Promoting Transparency and Accountability

One of the great things taken from Lean in Lean Six Sigma is the notion of transparency. When looking at pain points in our processes, it allows for stakeholders involved in the project to drop what they’re doing and make sure the production’s output continues at a nominal pace.

This is only a net benefit for any customer-centric organization. When we look at how a transparent workplace benefits production, it also increases accountability for all those involved with a project. While this might not ultimately reflect outward to your customers, it is a great way of maintaining a throughline of quality.

Enhancing Output Quality

Speaking of quality, that’s going to be a core tenet of your output. A shoddy product or service is a failed one. As such, when looking at how to use Lean Six Sigma to build a customer-centric organization, quality is going to be front and center.

A good quality service or product is one that customers will return to, time and time again. Thankfully, Lean Six Sigma tools like DMAIC, root-cause analysis, and data analysis are going to be your best friend for maintaining quality.

Customers might not care about the internal mechanisms behind a product. However, they’ll care that the product works and does so out of the box. As such, when you start developing any product or service, think about the elements that are critical to get right.

Reduction of Lead Times

You might have a stellar product, but if it takes months to fulfill orders, you’ll have angry customers. This is something I’ve experienced personally during my time in the tech industry. When you’re providing a service, the best time to start is yesterday, but right now will do just fine.

The same holds when looking at a customer-centric organization driven by Lean Six Sigma. You’ll want to look at where you can reduce any chokepoints or bottlenecks that can stop fulfilling those orders. Reducing those lead times is only going to increase customer happiness, which in turn is going to increase your profits.

Other Useful Tools and Concepts

Looking for some other tips and tricks to go with your morning coffee? You might be interested to see how Six Sigma in government can improve public services. Government processes are often dragged down by years of inefficient operations and red tape, but you can move past that with some Six Sigma practices.

Additionally, you might want to take a closer look at when to use design thinking or DMAIC when designing a new product. Both of these strategies are fantastic means of improving a process or product, but learning when to use each can yield stellar results.

Conclusion

A customer-centric organization is something that every business should strive to be. When looking at using Lean Six Sigma, you’ve got everything you need to end up with happy customers at the end of the day.

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