All Features
Kate Zabriskie
‘I understand your frustration.” Really? My bank account is overdrawn. I’ve bounced two checks, and it’s because you made a mistake. Unless you’re also having fees charged to your account, I’m not feeling it.
“We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.” That’s what I was told after…
Lauren Hinkel
Across the country, hundreds of thousands of drivers deliver packages and parcels to customers and companies each day, with many click-to-door times averaging only a few days. Coordinating a supply chain feat of this magnitude in a predictable and timely way is a longstanding problem of operations…
Mike Figliuolo
I’m fortunate enough to travel to some great places to serve my clients. During those travels, I can’t help but have many customer service interactions from which to draw lessons.
Here, I’ll share how barbecue, airplanes, and coffee can teach you a few things to do (or not do) to create a better…
Roy Arguelles
In today’s marketplace, where products and services proliferate and competition intensifies, businesses are realizing that they must offer more than just commodities to thrive. Enter the experience economy—a paradigm shift where companies are no longer just selling goods or services but crafting…
Etienne Nichols
In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the federal agency tasked with regulating the medical device market and ensuring the safety and effectiveness of all devices for patients.
The FDA classifies medical devices by risk into three categories: Class I, Class II, and Class…
Stephanie Ojeda
An analysis of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warning letters by the Food and Drug Law Institute reveals a perhaps not-so-surprising link between training gaps and FDA violations.
It’s one of several factors motivating companies to switch to automated training management software. The…
Bruce Hamilton
I was asked to lead a workshop in the sales order department of a manufacturer that we had helped with process improvement on the factory floor. Those efforts had positively reverberated across the company in the form of fewer late and expedited orders. Still, sales order employees were wondering…
Dawn Bailey
The Center for Organ Recovery & Education (CORE), a 2019 Baldrige Award recipient, is a nonprofit organ procurement organization (OPO) in Pittsburgh with a federally designated service area encompassing a population of 5.5 million in western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and one county in New…
Mark Hembree
Everyone knows customer service is increasingly automated and impersonal—that’s a “dog bites man” story. It’s not news because it happens all the time. When a man bites a dog, that’s news.
But what if you’re bitten by a chatbot or AI? Aside from newsworthiness, is the owner responsible? Where does…
Mike Figliuolo
If you have kids, you know the nauseating feeling of one of them going down for the count and having to rush them to the emergency room. I had that grim experience recently. What I learned from that ER visit is businesses can make very strong statements about how little they care about their…
Kate Zabriskie
‘She wanted to return a cake that was almost gone. How bad could it have been? Normally, if something is spoiled or not up to standards, it’s returned almost intact. This thing was a pile of crumbs. But it gets better: She demanded cash, yelled at me, and started causing a scene. I hope she never…
Mike Figliuolo
It’s important to have customer-friendly policies if you want to have a great customer service culture. Your policies drive team behaviors, so be sure they’re consistent with the brand you want to put forward.
I’m going to hark back to my recent post, “$325 Equals $210? The Math of Customer-…
Maggie Overfelt
Michele Gelfand finds inspiration for new projects all around her: taking in the banter in a boardroom, speaking with taxi drivers when traveling, observing the interactions between physicians and nurses during an unexpected trip to the doctor. The idea for one of her most recent papers was sparked…
NIST
Stain-resistant clothing, fast-food wrappers, and extreme weather gear such as certain jackets and pants—these products get many of their desirable features from a class of manufactured chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). But there’s a major downside: Researchers have found…
Mike Figliuolo
Many people proclaim they are gurus, ninjas, and other silly titles. Giving yourself such a title can cause people to lose respect for you, and it can cost you credibility.
Titles matter. A lot. So do email addresses and signature blocks. As unfortunate and as shallow as it is, people make a first…
Stephanie Ojeda
Formal complaint management is a requirement in regulated industries such as medical device and pharmaceuticals under U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other international regulations.
The FDA mandates that medical device companies, for example, designate a formal unit for managing…
Melissa Burant, Marc Schneider
As a manufacturer, you understand that supply chain disruptions happen all the time. What you don’t know is when or how they will affect your operation and business. But assessing your supply chain risks and implementing good supply chain management practices can be daunting. This is especially…
Michael King
In the ever-evolving life-sciences industry, market share is fiercely contested and companies must continuously optimize their operations to maintain their competitive edge.
Modern technologies and intelligence-driven solutions are revolutionizing how organizations work, empowering them to elevate…
Meg Sinclair
At Qualio, our mission is to help life science companies embed robust digitized quality to get their critical products to market at rapid speed and keep them there. And because the Qualio+ team combines over a century of collective quality and regulatory experience from within the life science…
Mike Figliuolo
Is the customer really always right? We throw that comment around haphazardly without truly considering the ramifications of such an approach. I’d submit that they’re not. There are plenty of times the customer is wrong (and sometimes, very much so).
First, let’s explore the implications of a “…
Alonso Diaz, Maria DiBari
Inspections by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are on the rise after the nation has recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic. Domestic inspections showed a drop in 2020 due to state health guidelines around quarantine.
The rise has more than doubled within three years of post-pandemic…
Mike Figliuolo
If you have a new business idea, I’m excited for you. If you ever want to get it off the ground, however, be sure you have a problem. A real problem. I know that sounds cryptic. Allow me to explain.
When I hear a new pitch, the first question I ask is, “What’s the problem?”
You would be surprised…
Katia Savchuk
Since generative AI went mainstream in 2023, it has inspired an equal measure of hype and fear. Boosters of tools such as ChatGPT and DALL-E predict that they will transform our economy, while skeptics worry about their potential to produce inaccurate or harmful results and ultimately replace…
Alonso Diaz, Maria DiBari
Quality consistently ranks among organizations’ foremost competitive priorities; it’s a prerequisite for success in the global marketplace. Firms that want a competitive edge do it by delivering products that meet customer needs and function as intended.
Despite the long-standing emphasis on the…
Mike Figliuolo
By eliminating low-value work from your life, you can focus on more important things. Get rid of difficult customers and focus on driving your business instead.
To get your new year started right, I’d like to share with you what I’ve been taught by homemade bread, lawn mowers, and cheap customers…
