Dealing with difficult customers……..

angry customer

angry customer

Do you have to deal with some really “difficult customers” ?

The first question you should ask is “why is this customer being difficult ?”

Most customers are “difficult” because they are not getting what they want

in terms of product quality or delivery.

So here are some tips for Managing those customers:-

1) Understand what the customer wants – EXACTLY. Get them to spell it out in detail in a product spec.

2) Ensure that your product matches the customer spec.

3) If you hit problems which affect customer delivery or quality you need to be pro-active by:-

a) Keeping the customer informed – don’t take the ostrich approach & bury your head in the sand – arrange a regular conference call on a regular basis until any issues are resolved.

b) What is the contingency ? – is there any alternative you can offer the

customer until you resolve the issue.

c) Give them a timing plan detailing all activities associated with fixing

the problem – and keep it up to date.

d) Don’t bullshit the customer – maintain integrity by being open & honest,even if it feels painful doing so.

Taking a pro-active approach to managing customer expectations will pay off

in the long run as they realise that everyone has problems & the above approach demonstrates you are going the extra mile to solve their issues.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

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“Dee eff emm eee aaay”…? #pmot #in

DFMEADFMEA or Design Failure Modes Effects Analysis is a Risk Management Tool which is widely used throughout the Automotive Industry.

DFMEA is a Team activity which is led by the Project Manager or Senior Design Engineer.

It involves using a set form & identifying the risks in the project.

Each Risk is called a Failure Mode. Each has an Effect. The Severity of this Effect is assigned a score where 10 is high impact & 1 low impact.

Each Failure Mode also has a Cause which is ranked according to its Occurrence or likelihood between 1 & 10.

Each Failure Mode also has a Current Control and its chance of detection is ranked 10 unlikely to 1 likely.

The product of Severity x Cause x Control gives us a Risk Priority Number or RPN which gives us a measure of the size of the problem and the urgency to address it.

Identifying a Recommended Action for each Failure Mode leads us to rescoring the Occurrence & Detection and subsequently reducing the RPN.

The key to success of DFMEA is not to get too hung up about the scores and to use it as intended, as a comparative tool for Risk Analysis.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

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