E10: 6 Golden Questions to Ask Our Customers

Of all the improvements or focus we may have in our organization or supply chain, the most important keystone in everything that we do is what our internal and external customer loyalty is and the relationship we have between the leaders of the organization and those two categories of customers.

Our internal and external customers are not lifeless commodities. External customers are the ones who pay the bills in your organization and provide payroll for your internal customers or employees. While our internal customers are the ones that provide the means for the organization to provide a good or service to our external customers.

In the end, a loss of customers or customer loyalty will equal devastation and fear. Depending on how bad the loss of customers is, it could mean closing your doors and going out of business.

My hope is that this series of the 13 laws of System Optimization will help give us a larger and all-encompassing perspective to help take us to the next level from our traditional lean manufacturing training.