Managing Customer-Driven Process Improvement

Duration: 30.0

Failing to realize the importance of customer service and effective communication can lead to increasingly dissatisfied customers. This course provides valuable advice on how to improve your interactions with customers, including how to overcome barriers to communication as well as how to speak effectively, use vocal cues, and listen actively and use paraphrasing to convey your understanding of the customer's needs.

• classify examples of communication as formal or informal
• identify methods to overcome barriers to effective communication
• recognize the skills required for effective speaking
• match positive and negative vocal cues with examples
• identify the factors that contribute to effective listening
• match the mirroring behaviors involved in active listening to their characteristics
• identify the benefits of using paraphrasing techniques
• use verbal communication skills effectively in a customer support environment

Duration: 121.0

Customers are at the heart of all Six Sigma initiatives, and this focus on customers is what makes Six Sigma an outstanding organizational performance improvement program. The voice of the customer (VOC) is a Six Sigma strategy used to capture requirements and feedback from customers in order to meet their requirements. Voice of the customer is a critical input at every stage in the Six Sigma DMAIC process, particularly at the Define stage. At this stage, critical customer requirements concerning quality, cost, process, and delivery are collected and translated into measurable, actionable project goals using a number of tools. Using VOC begins with defining Six Sigma goals for collecting and analyzing customer requirements. It is imperative that Six Sigma leaders determine the critical to x (CTx) requirements concerning quality, cost, process, and delivery requirements of customers and the organization. Then the team needs to identify and select the most effective methods for collecting customer feedback and requirements. From there, customer requirements are translated into measurable, actionable project goals. This course examines how an organization uses the voice of the customer to define the problem at hand and to set the direction of its Six Sigma efforts. It discusses some common customer data collection methods – such as surveys, interviews, and focus groups – and looks at how to ensure validity and reliability in data collection. In addition, the course illustrates how tools such as CTx, SIPOC, Kano analysis, critical-to-quality (CTQ) analysis, and quality function deployment (QFD) are used to translate customer data into critical customer requirements and actionable goals for the Six Sigma team. This course is aligned with the ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt certification exam and is designed to assist learners as part of their exam preparation. It builds on foundational knowledge that is taught in SkillSoft's ASQ-aligned Green Belt curriculum.

• match the voice of the customer (VOC) strategy tasks to their descriptions
• identify how to perform different aspects of a customer-segmentation analysis in a given scenario
• identify examples of the three main customer-segmentation criteria
• recognize considerations associated with gathering customer data
• determine the most appropriate customer data collection method to use in a given scenario
• recognize key concepts related to the measures for ensuring validity and reliability of data collection outcomes
• identify the definitions of key terminology associated with validity, reliability, and margin of error in data collection
• recognize how various tools are used to identify and analyze customer requirements
• identify the characteristics of CTx requirements
• classify CTx requirements in a given scenario
• categorize elements of a process improvement project within a SIPOC diagram

Duration: 24.0

Part of problem solving is creating alternative solutions. In this course, you'll learn how to define ideal states and generate and evaluate problem solutions. You'll also learn how to recognize and avoid common problem-solving pitfalls.

• identify best practices for defining the ideal state
• apply best practices for generating alternatives to problems
• recall the steps for facilitating a group brainstorming session
• distinguish between various techniques for evaluating alternative solutions
• avoid common traps in the problem-solving process