INTRODUCTION TO

THE LEAN SIX SIGMA

METHODOLOGY

CASE STUDY
Improve customer
complaints process
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Marilena Tsetsi
Master Black Belt
Quality Leader

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 DMAIC project : LEAN
Define : project scope
1. Create the project charter, including the
SIPOC, project risks, project plan
Measure : flow measurement, PCE
2. Create the current process map
3. Create the data collection plan for
process KPIs (LT, CT) and probable causes
4. Calculate current process cycle efficiency
Analyse : Flow & Value analysis
5. Current Value Stream map, work &
waiting times, Work in progress &
inventory, resources, measurement
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6. Identify VA & waste, analyze VA,
NVA, BVA ; Quick wins – ideal and
future state VSM
7. Ishikawa diagram, identify and prioritize
root causes
DEFINE
MEASURE
ANALYZE
IMPROVE CONTROL
Improve : Implement solutions
8. Identify improvement levers and
solutions for improvement –use of
Lean tools (5S, standards, visual aids,
kanban, ….)
9. Prioritize solutions implementation, Who
What When plan
Target VSM, solutions implementation
Control : New PCE, Process
monitoring, transfer, closure
10. Measure new performance, create
improved process monitoring plan –
standardize, visual aids, standard
management routines
11. Verify financial savings and improved
process efficiency
12. Sustain improvement, best practices
sharing, replication opportunities, transfer
to process owner, celebrate
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 D M A I C

Introduction to the case

study, Define phase
Improve the resolution Lead Time of customers written
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complaints

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 D M A I C
Customer context

Energy provider, national leader, supplying domestic customers (millions),

professionals and large accounts. This group operates many customer relation
centers (Front Office) and back offices, in 8 geographical areas : North, East,
West, Center, South, South East, South West and the capital region. Customers
can submit either an oral claim through the customer center and/or a written
one to the center address appearing on their invoice.

Following a customer satisfaction survey, domestic customers are only 30%

satisfied with their complaints resolution time and quality; the objective being
80% satisfied.

A first data extraction from the CRM system showed that the resolution lead time
varies from 0 ! To 288 days for an objective of 20 days ; 2 regions the capital
region and the South one seem to have the biggest « defect » rates (number of
claims waiting to be processed and in progress more than 20 days)
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In this context, given also a high dissatisfaction of the BO operators, a Green belt
project has been validated by the Customer Services director, in order to reduce
and stabilize the written complaints resolution lead time in less than 20 days.
Oral claims will be studied in another improvement project

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 D M A I C

Customer issues

• Complaints processing is a major customer satisfaction issue and an

excellent indicator of the customer relationship performance. Currently
this activity is not monitored and customers are not satisfied by the
resolution time and quality.
• This lack of monitoring impacts teams workload and resources
allocation
• The problem resolution via the GB project should help us to improve
(reduce) the claims resolution lead time and the customer satisfaction
(ability to provide the correct answer on time, the first time)
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 D M A I C

Voice of Customer (VOC)

 Clients wishes to have a quick answer by a single point of contact

 « Better coordination between the complaints service and the
accounting one, in case of reimbursement »

 « Have a correct and satisfying answer the first time »

 « Process claims quickly and promptly»

 « Have one single point of contact and get an answer on my claim
that I have send 2 months ago»

 « it is not normal to receive an answer 5 months later, after many

contacts »
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 D M A I C

Voice of internal Customer

 « Too many complaints from the same customer waiting to be

processed »
 « No communication or visibility with the other services or company
directions »

 « No standard answer template, loosing time with many validations »

 « Difficult to study the customer historical data »

 «Some complaints are very complexes to be resolved by junior
operators »

 «We don’t know who and how could help us »

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 D M A I C

Current data

The number of written claims received from the South region the last 6
months is 3172
The current average time to process a claim is about 90 min, with an
objective of 30 min
Currently 4 BO operators are exclusively assigned to process written
claims in the South region, 40 operators for all the regions
Operators express a high work overload, a backlog constantly
increasing et a lot of displeasure

Customers complaining use many different channels in order to get a

quick, prompt and correct answer
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 D M A I C

Project estimated savings

 For equal volumes, estimated financial gains (FTE cost/year: 70k€ for 190days/year, effective time)

Volumes Current objecti gains

cost ve
SOUTH (estimated year) 2*3172 90min*curre 30min
nt volumes
6344 571000min 190320 380680
min
France * 5
Total ~500K€

 Soft BENEFITS:
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 Personnel moral

 Efficient solutions deployment at all the regions, standardization

 Increased productivity (doing more with same number of resources)

 Customer satisfaction

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 Current detailed process description D M A I C

 80% of mails are received by the national mailing administration center, where they are
sorted and the mails identified as « complaints » are then send by fax to the electronic
regional complaints mail box, if the region is identified otherwise to a central email box. The
regions managers every morning examine and analyze the letters: if they consider that it is a
real complaint of their responsibility (region), they assign it to an operator otherwise they
transfer it to another region.
 The operator in charge of the resolution the day on which he can process it –growing backlog
and no standards to prioritize incoming letters processing, opens the complaint, tries to
identify the customer and register the complaint in the CRM system; other operators register
the complaints the day they can process/resolve them. After the complaint registration the
operator sends an acknowledgment letter or calls directly the customer to confirm reception
and future processing..
 The operator then analyses the claim and identify the reason of complaint :
 If it is a reimbursement he sends it by fax to the accounting team and closes it the CRM.
 If it is an installation defect, he sends it by mail post to the installation company and
closes it in the CRM .
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 If finally it is under his responsibility and competence (if not he transfers it to a

competent colleague) he processes it and creates the draft response letter. He transfers
then (by fax, courier, email) to his manager for validation. The manager receives all the
response letters from the operators and read each of them. If he considers the response
letter correct, he informs the operator who will then print it and send it to the manager
for signature; if not correct he send it back to the operator. Once the response letter
signed, the operator puts it in an envelop and brings it to the internal posting service.
Finally he closes the compliant in the CRM.
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 project charter

Project charter
Title
Process, service or product Project leader

Direction team members

Project sponsor Stakeholders

Process Owner

Problem definition, challenges

Brief problem statement

define the problem (5W1H)
1) What, When, Where, Who, Why?
2) How much?
3) Impact?
Data showing current problem
No solution !

Critical To Quality, KPIs

Identify customers end customer, managers, operators, accounting teams, installation
Briefly customer needs company
Why current performance is inefficient
Target performance indicators Metric/CTQ Baseline Current Goal Specifications

project objective

Based on provided Brief

Define project objective (S.M.A.R.T.)
Time to achieve objective

Context draft the project Project scope

charter
In scope

out of scope

Business opportunities Quantifiable (000) Non quantifiable

Client benefits Internal/external customer benefits

Stakeholders benefits New revenue Employee benefits

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Employee benefits other savings

Total

Risks and known constraints

Risks
IT system
other constraints

Expert resources Yes No

investment
expert
other

change management

other information if appropriate

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