Prashant Lade

Hi, This can be Lean savings and not a GB project. Regards, Prashant

Improving ROI of Six Sigma With Root Cause Analysis Evidence-based root cause analysis is the cornerstone of any truly successful continuous improvement initiative. Do you hear Six Sigma professionals express frustration that the organization does not support their efforts? Are there department heads in your life who have complained that their Six Sigma professionals are not delivering the needed results? And that each project is too time-consuming? Have you heard stories about CFOs who insist that the sizable investment in Six Sigma training and program initiation has not-and never will-pay off? After all, it costs around $20,000 just to train one Black Belt. If you can answer "yes" to one or more of the above questions, you are not alone. Many Six Sigma professionals will tell you that sweeping program improvements are needed for Six Sigma's validity to be verified. Many Six Sigma professionals feel frustrated that managers are focused only on short-term results to please shareholders. They feel that if managers would just allow more time, the desired results would be delivered. In reality, managers will not change their position because the pressures they face from executives, shareholders, and analysts will not go away. Six Sigma professionals must give management what they are looking for by producing results more quickly and effectively. Put plainly, the primary objective of Six Sigma is to improve processes by increasing process knowledge with an end-goal of providing predictive control. Yet very few organizations achieve this. Six Sigma is a valid and valuable methodology that-when implemented with an enlightened approach-fosters a much clearer understanding of processes and the appropriate path forward to improve efficiency and the promised results. Improving cost- and time-effectiveness Despite a common misconception, Six Sigma is not a completely inflexible method that must be used in its entirety, nor must it be used exclusively. Each organization should choose which tools work well for its needs, and which tools do not have value and should be eliminated or replaced with something more effective. Many companies with active and successful Six Sigma programs acknowledge that they still are challenged with problem recurrence and unnecessary costs. One of the most effective ways to address this is by integrating an effective, evidence-based root cause analysis (RCA) methodology. Six Sigma professionals are taught to use fishbone diagrams, fault tree analysis (FTA), and failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) to determine root causes. These methods can get very lengthy, tedious, and speculative. As an alternative, companies that use evidence-based RCA find that they effectively identify the "vital few" root causes and solutions, and then are able to save significant time and money by spending less time validating "Xs," and reducing the need for design of experiments. For companies that are about to initiate a Six Sigma program, it is logical to initiate an evidence-based RCA program first. Evidence-based RCA will increase process knowledge and make the Six Sigma program immediately more effective. Logically, you have a better chance of fixing things that you understand. Following are some guiding principles and best practices to improve the Six Sigma process and results by improving logical problem-solving capabilities. An undesired event can only occur as a result of condition-based causes and at least one action-based cause occurring together. For instance, for a fire to start, there are numerous conditions that must be present-such as oxygen, flammable material, and an ignition source. But there also must be some kind of action that initiates the fire, like someone striking a match. If any of those four elements is removed, a fire will not start. There is no single cause of any event; events are the result of multiple causes coming together.Methods like the fishbone diagram, FTA, and FMEA do not require evidence or identification of both condition-based and action-based causes, so they do not thoroughly and accurately identify the real, multiple-cause nature of problems. Because Six Sigma calls for a "scientific" method for problem solving, an evidence-based RCA methodology can be integrated into the analyze phase. And because fishbone, FTA and FMEA are based on opinion and consensus, an evidence-based RCA can be used in their place. To identify and validate causes that truly play a role in any given problem, a proven evidence-based RCA methodology can be very effective. Some methods encourage identification of problem causes through brainstorming. This tends to generate a list of issues that are important based on personal agendas, but may not really have contributed to the problem at hand. People involved in the process then get frustrated when solutions are not successful, or feel disenfranchised when their opinions are not heeded. The evidence-based root cause analysis process has four steps, which include: Define the problem Identify the causes of the problem (cause and effect chart) and supporting each cause with evidence. Identify solutions. Implement and monitor effectiveness of the best solutions. An effective solution must meet the following conditions: It must be within your control to implement. It cannot create another problem in the process. It must be in alignment with the goals of the business. It must prevent a recurrence of the problem. The more you know about your processes, the better you will be at identifying which projects to pursue, which causes really played a role in any given problem, and which solutions have the most potential. With the inclusion of an evidence-based RCA program, select organizations are reaping significant return on investment (ROI) and other rewards from their Six Sigma programs. The real-life experience below illustrates this. I worked with a Ph.D. statistician in the early-1990s. Although we did not refer to our work as Six Sigma, we used many of the techniques that are popular today and made many improvements-or so we thought. We worked on issues that caused problems within operations. We made great improvements, but we suffered from recurring problems and our improvements were difficult to sustain. These problems made it difficult to realize the benefits outside of manufacturing. We had a poor understanding of our processes. We noticed marginal improvement as we gained experience, but it was still not enough. We did not understand our processes and it was apparent that this was the source of our failures. We were operating by conjecture and consensus. The company adopted the Apollo RCA methodology in the mid-1990s. This method uses an evidence-based cause and effect approach to identify root causes, but nearly all of the investigations were related to safety. Apollo became known as a "safety tool" and was not used much in other areas. In the following years, I transferred to other locations within the company. I continued to use Six Sigma and lean, and we continued to make stunning improvements within operations. But the fishbone diagram, FTA, and FMEA remained troublesome. It was very difficult to get people to participate because they were time-consuming and the assumptions were frequently wrong. Management began to question the capabilities of our subject-matter experts. We implemented lean to further support our continuous improvement effort, but because it is a methodology designed to eliminate waste, it didn't help identify causes or targets. In retrospect, no matter our experience or education, it was highly improbable that we could have accurately and consistently diagnosed a problem and identified corrective actions based upon our expertise alone. It is an unrealistic expectation that did not work for us then and it does not work for most people now. I began working for a different company and received formal Six Sigma training. My new job placed me in direct contact with the business managers and I began to learn the business-critical issues. As a result, the project that I chose for my Black Belt certification was highly relevant to the needs of the business. I also decided to use the Apollo method in my project to more accurately identify root causes and focus my Six Sigma work. The initial RCAs were very challenging because we could not provide evidence for many of our causes. We were limited by our lack of process knowledge, but this time we were aware that we did not understand. It was not uncommon for us to suspend an RCA to conduct experiments to find the needed evidence. Whether our causes were right or wrong, the RCA method was validating-or invalidating-the causes and providing tangible evidence on which to focus our Six Sigma effort. The Six Sigma certification project returned two to three times the value estimated in the design phase, and subsequent projects were beginning to consistently affect the bottom line. We were learning. Effective RCA program setup I was transferred to a plant manager position and my path forward was clear. The first order of business was to create a documented manufacturing strategy that detailed how we would run our operation. Within that strategy was a formal RCA program that clearly specified when an RCA investigation was required. The specifications were high at first-since our manpower resources were limited-but became much tighter as we made improvements and gained process knowledge and experience. Every employee received Apollo RCA training. Most were trained as participants, others as facilitators and super users. We conducted nearly 100 investigations per year, tracking the number of recurrences and their value compared to the previous failure. We required all the solutions to be in place and effective for at least six months. Impressive results and ROI The return on investment during the first year was 400 percent and we were learning more about our processes with each RCA. We followed by providing an overview of Six Sigma to all employees, and training two employees as Black Belts. But, we used RCA in place of the fishbone diagram, FTA, and FMEA. It took much less time to identify and implement projects, which encouraged more involvement and more enthusiasm for the effort. Ongoing RCA program development We continued our effort by providing lean training to all employees. The continuous improvement program was providing consistent and sustainable results. For two consecutive years, plant records were established for throughput, yield, safety, on-time delivery, and reduction in the cost of poor quality. Manpower was reduced by 10 percent through attrition. It simply took less work to produce the products. The organization is still learning and improving. Conclusion An evidence-based RCA program is the cornerstone of any truly successful continuous improvement initiative. You must understand your processes to create meaningful and sustainable change. RCA also is an excellent approach to reduce the project workload, while providing more meaningful process information. Six Sigma professionals feel more fulfilled as they achieve impressive results quickly and managers are more able to realize the benefits.

Hi, You can do a project on cycle time reduction by simply automizing some steps in the process cycle.

Customer Experience or Nothing! When Customer Satisfaction is Not Enough So you measure customer satisfaction. The results seem to be good and you show some improvement. But somehow when you talk to customers they seem to never appreciate your services. Every problem is magnified by customers and you often feel as they blow it out of proportion. Why is it that your statistics demonstrate success while in your experience every day dealing with customers feels more like a failure? This is a critical question many executives are facing on a regular basis. The reason for this disparity between the satisfaction results and reality as they live it every day is simple: they measure the wrong thing. To be more exact: they declare success too quickly. When the target is customer satisfaction, executives are setting the bar too low. Such a low bar allows them to meet it, but miss the potential of customer relationship. Let's decipher this puzzle. A client once called, all excited to share with me a major improvement in his customer relationships. His organization managed to lower the number of inaccurate invoices they issued to customers by 90%. He was excited and thrilled by the achievement. I asked him if he can identify one customer who will be willing to pay a cent more for the privilege of receiving accurate invoices. Needless to say he could not identify such a customer. What happened here? By fixing his customer invoicing problem, this executive met customer expectations. He did not do anything special. He simply satisfied customers. Customer satisfaction is a low bar to target in an era of demanding customers. Customer satisfaction is merely meeting expectations. When you meet expectations you miss the whole point of the relationship: exceeding expectations. Customers do not notice when we merely satisfy them. Meeting expectations is boring and when customers are bored they start searching for other more exciting alternatives a.k.a your competitors. Welcome to the new bar: customer experience or nothing. We live in a world when the customer has raised the bar. Just as you do not write a congratulatory letter to the hotel manager for having shampoo and soap in your hotel room, customers will not congratulate you when you satisfy them. They want to be surprised. They want to be amazed and delighted. They want you to go the extra mile. If you are merely satisfying their expectations, you are at par with your competitors. And parity with competition is not a recipe for a long-term relationship. The new competitive paradigm is: who will exceed customer expectations? Which service provider can surprise customers and deliver above and beyond? Delivering customer experience means delivering customized and personalized value to our customers. Customer experience is about emotional engagement with customers and not simply rational delivery of a one-size-fits-all product or service. In a study conducted by Gallup Group, the company discovered the purchasing patterns of rationally satisfied customers and unsatisfied customers were pretty much the same. It was only the emotionally satisfied customers (those who had an emotional experience) who almost doubled their purchases in comparison to their rationally satisfied or unsatisfied customers. The study's conclusion was quite clear: simply doing your job will no longer deliver positive customer actions. Customer satisfaction alone does no longer deliver sufficient value. Counting on customer satisfaction to measure your success will probably deliver an incorrect perception of success. At best, customer satisfaction will indicate that your process is not broken and that you have delivered without much of a reason for complaining. But do not confuse absence of complaints with customer delight. To achieve customer experience, you need to go beyond the traditional Six Sigma perception of process redesign. An experience needs to be redesigned to deliver the following elements: Personalized service to meet the individual needs of the customers Customized products to reduce the need for customers to make them fit their needs Relevance that applies to the customers' lifestyles and unique issues Complete solutions that address the holistic problems customers face Emotionally engaging experiences that treat the customer as a human being with feelings and emotions and recognize his fears, hopes and dreams. Our global customer experience management study in 2008 indicated that companies are still failing to deliver a complete solution to customer needs. In order of importance, complete solution and value-added services came way before web based services. The challenge of delivering customer experience is to identify the complete customer problem, and delivering a solution to it that will have sufficient personalized value-add. In short, ask yourself, did our total experience allow the customer to forget about the issue? Does he or she enjoy a complete peace of mind, or do we leave them with much work to do before and after they encounter our services? The approach to customer experience is based on the following guidelines: Define the experience you are creating for your customers Key question: Do your company and your customers agree that the experience you offer meets your customers' complete needs. Deliver the experience to your customers effectively, quickly and easily Key question: Is your company easy to do business with or do you create obstacles for the customer? Delight your customers by delivering excellence every day and creating an emotional connection to your brand Key question: Has your company fulfilled your customers' basic needs to lay the foundation for creating an emotion bond? Customer satisfaction is a nice start. But in the eyes of the customer it is no longer the endgame. Any organization that determines to differentiate itself based on customer delight needs to assume the same conviction. Operating based on predetermined processes and minimizing complaints is not the definition of greatness. It is at best the definition of "not bad". To build customer loyalty and commitment, organizations need to raise the bar and operate based on customer experience principles of exceeding customer expectations and delivering emotionally engaging experience. Customers dictate the new rule: customer experience or nothing! Your choice is to resist and ignore or embrace and exceed. Shared Services and Customer Experience The challenge of customer satisfaction vs. customer experience is magnified in the world of shared services. Several unique customer relationship issues create a heightened demand for operating based on customer experience principles: Perception of "back office" and commodity - share services organizations are perceived as "non core" and as such do not enjoy the best customer relationship (to say the least). They need to work harder to demonstrate their value to the organization. Difficult customer relationships - customers are viewing the relationship with shared services as "forced". They have never selected the shared services. They believe that, outside, there are better options. Through customer experience, shared services organizations need to dispel this myth and demonstrate closer, more relevant value. Outsourcing as a constant threat - we often observed the fear of shared services employees from the imminent threat of outsourcing. Leaders of shared services need to combat this fear by developing and delivering superior value and experiences. The answer to outsourcing is not customer satisfaction but exceeding customer expectations. Process orientation - Often shared services value is perceived as operating a set of processes. It is this mentality that reduces customers to employee IDs and ignores the human behind the number. Customer experiences are elevating the perception and help shared services relate to their customers through a personalized value uniquely designed to the individual. Shared services must elevate their bar and operate as if they have been in a competitive environment. Do not take your customers for granted. That is when you will settle for satisfaction. It is the competitive spirit to be the absolute best that will energize you to set and reach higher standards and serve your customers better.

Six Sigma Sharpens Services Since Six Sigma was first developed at Motorola, refined at AlliedSignal and transformed into legend at GE under Jack Welch, it has found legions of new converts in myriad business sectors. Now this successful quality initiative is revolutionizing not just manufacturing but also service industries, including outsourcing, financial services and telecommunications organizations. Six Sigma--originally designed to perfect manufacturing processes that were already highly engineered--might seem ill-suited to service organizations, wherein processes aren't engineered at all. But this is precisely why the methodology has something valuable to offer service organizations. Because many service businesses (which often suffer from inflated costs and poor customer service) have never analyzed their processes, they are ripe with potential for process improvement. From task to process Six Sigma's wider applicability was first glimpsed at GE. The company understood that Six Sigma techniques could be applied to any process that resulted in defects, whether they be faulty products, financial transactions or business processes. With this knowledge, GE soon expanded Six Sigma to its service businesses, GE Financial. The heart of every service-based business depends on the opinions, behaviors and decisions of people acting through work processes. Analyzing and modifying human performance in these environments is complex. Nevertheless, task-oriented service organizations including mortgage lenders, wireless phone providers and call centers have discovered that Six Sigma brings a process focus to their operations (e.g., streamlined mortgage approval procedures, improved customer service processes and improved customer-problem resolution). Financial services Six Sigma has been particularly successful in the financial services sector, in which performance management is critical. Customers expect faster and easier service at every point of contact--and if they don't get it, they go elsewhere. The economic boom of the 1990s strained many lending institutions' capacity to originate, close and service loans quickly enough to meet customer demand. As a result, companies attempted to improve the cycle times of all processes, break bottlenecks, minimize errors, cut costs, increase capacity and delight customers. They had discovered that providing more value per customer transaction--rather than securing more transactions--leads to market leadership. Simply put, delighting existing customers can be more important than finding new ones, as this intense focus on customer satisfaction leads to top-line growth and drives greater shareholder value. By using Six Sigma's define-measure-analyze-improve-control process, leading financial services organizations have worked to reach the methodology's aim of near error-free performance. Moreover, this goal is relevant to all processes, from handling customers' money, to processing payments, to sending out bills, to closing a loan, to answering the phone. The international private banking division of one of the world's largest banking and financial services companies provides an example. The group faced increasing customer dissatisfaction as a result of inefficiencies in its international wire-transfer operations. The inefficiencies greatly increased the bank's annual wire-processing costs, some of which the bank passed along to customers through transaction fees--despite the fact that the bank's own surveys identify fees as a key customer concern. The bank used Six Sigma to redesign its international wire-transfer process, greatly reducing the errors, customer callbacks, transfer delays and transfer fees that inconvenienced customers and contributed to high rates of customer churn. Transfer cycle time was slashed 46 percent, which, coupled with an extended cutoff time for making transfers, has all but eliminated delayed wires. Slashing the cost-per-payment order by more than 50 percent has also enabled the division to waive its transaction fees entirely, further improving customer satisfaction. In addition to helping the bank retain valued customers, the improvements could save the company nearly $1 million annually. And perhaps a more important (albeit less quantifiable) result is that the bank has improved its reputation in its customers' eyes. A leading mortgage banking firm offers another example of how Six Sigma can drive customer satisfaction and ultimately increase market share and growth. The bank, whose clientele includes borrowers disqualified from traditional loan sources, wanted to improve customer satisfaction and increase investor confidence. In addition to establishing a customer-relationship management initiative, the firm introduced Six Sigma into key business processes by training in-house Six Sigma experts to lead critical process redesign projects. Once the initiative was launched, the bank not only addressed customer and investor issues but also produced significant and unanticipated increases in revenue and reductions in costs. The lender improved customer satisfaction and response time by 350 percent, cutting "abandoned customer call" rates from 12 to 4 percent and reducing process redundancies by 66 percent. At the same time, an increase in loan retention of 20 percent and the elimination of $21 million in risk exposure boosted investor confidence. Together, these improvements save the company $5.5 million annually and have generated additional revenues of $1 million. Telecommunications Following that solid record of success in financial services, the next Six Sigma revolution is likely to take place in the telecommunications industry. Both the telecommunications equipment and services sectors have been badly battered in recent years. Total spending on equipment fell by about 15 percent in 2001 and another 20 percent in 2002. Long-haul optical networks now operate at less than half their capacity. Until sales of core wire-line equipment pick up, manufacturers in the United States and Europe also face the challenge of developing products to deliver data and voice traffic from long-distance networks to broadband customers in urban areas. The mobile communications segment is also changing as exhaustively hyped mobile data services and third-generation wireless technology arrive. During the late 1990s, the telecommunications services sector held fast to the motto, "Build it and they will come." After the Telecommunications Act of 1996 passed, the telecom sector rode the high-tech current of an economic expansion that, in retrospect, appears to have been built on blind faith. During the five years following the 1996 legislation, the telecom industry received $1.3 trillion from investors and has since lost more than $1 trillion in market value. For telecommunications equipment and services, short- and long-term success depends on excelling in operational focus, financial discipline and opportunistic growth. Six Sigma can help with all three. What follow are examples illustrating highly focused projects that suggest the enormous potential of applying Six Sigma to the telecommunications industry: Increasing sales force availability for customers in emerging markets. Relentless competition in telecommunications requires an account team that can assess customer needs and submit quotes quickly. Nevertheless, Six Sigma analysis suggests that salespeople in the emerging market for a telecommunications provider spend an average of 52 percent of their time in nonvalue-added activities such as travel, meetings and customer service issues--despite the fact that the company depends on increased sales force productivity to weather the economic downturn and industry turmoil. Six Sigma analysis uncovers statistically and economically significant relationships between the time spent on nonvalue-added activities, the extent of a salesperson's territory (whether the salesperson sets his or her own customer appointments or these are preset), and the amount of time and territory-management skills required to provide outstanding service. A company can address all these factors by setting up a special call center team to set appointments for salespeople and develop a process for route management that enables the team to prioritize appointments in the most geographically efficient way. As a result, salespeople can spend more time in front of prospective customers, save money on travel and spend less time on nonvalue-added activities. Reducing the sales-to-cash interval. As a private branch exchange dealer/distributor's selling model shifts to resale, the company must forecast and accelerate customers' payments after installation more accurately in order to reduce exposure to creditors. The sales-to-cash interval averages four months, whereas reducing it by only one month would save $550,000. However, the company's sales-to-cash process is complex, with numerous interdependencies that can cause excessive delay. A Six Sigma team finds that the longest interval under direct control is the time from installation to posting the invoice. The average time stands at 18.3 days, costing the company $420,000 annually in delayed revenue. Focusing on this critical interval, the team develops a database to track an order through its entire life cycle, creates tools for process operators to monitor overdue orders, modifies the process for more direct operator communication and develops a means for regular process control review and discussion. The interval is reduced by 7.5 days, which results in annual savings of $420,000. In addition to increasing the accuracy and timeliness of customer billings, improving forecasting accuracy, and reducing internal costs, the project leads to modifications in setting customer expectations and paves the way for an improved collections process. Reducing business market collections. A telecommunications provider focused on generating sales revenue in its business market performs poorly when it comes to collecting that revenue. A preliminary analysis by a Six Sigma team determines that 60 percent of billed revenue, or approximately $25 million, goes 60 days past due every month--jeopardizing the company's objective to achieve positive cash flow by the end of the year. Combining Six Sigma analytical tools and business process management, the team's program to reduce defects in the collections process includes reprioritizing collections work, assigning collections representatives to strategic accounts, conducting collections blitzkriegs, stopping the high turnover in the collections manager position and implementing a new call strategy. The project reduces by almost 18 percent the total past due greater than 60 days, increasing revenue by $2.4 million. These examples illustrate only a few of the many processes and functions that Six Sigma in telecommunications can address. From maintenance, procurement and operations to customer care, sales cycle time, cost-per-transaction and duplications, Six Sigma will likely make enormous differences in customer satisfaction, revenues and costs. And as the methodology spreads to more of those functions, its benefits will grow exponentially. Succeeding with Six Sigma in services Successfully implementing Six Sigma in the service sector requires a relentless focus on customers, specifically, meeting their needs as efficiently as possible. This requires four critical steps: 1. Define what's critical to your customers and confirm that your core processes are aligned to those requirements. As the term "services" implies, you must understand your customers' needs before you can serve them. Find out what those needs are through surveys, call center data, focus groups, promotional campaigns--whatever means allow the voice of the customer to be heard clearly. At the same time, you must understand the key business issues for your company and align the voice of the customer with them. 2. Translate customer requirements into measurable characteristics of your processes. Once you understand customer requirements, you must fulfill them by measuring your processes' effectiveness and efficiency. "Effectiveness" means addressing the problem of defects that your processes produce; "efficiency" means addressing the time and money that the processes consume in meeting customer needs. A high rate of defects, and time and money wasted in nonvalue-added activities, increases your cost-per-transaction. The formula for translating customer requirements into measurable characteristics is simple: "as measured by." For example, if on-time delivery is important for your customer, the metric would typically be "on-time delivery as measured by the time from the promised date to the date of actual fulfillment." 3. Quantify the effect of gaps in your processes in terms of the cost of poor quality. For example, a mortgage lender whose customers want fast action on their applications might find that the process includes a high number of abandoned calls by customers or long delays in producing quotes, causing a drop in prospects and numerous inaccurate credit reports. The Six Sigma methodology includes powerful tools for analyzing each of those gaps and quantifying the related cost of poor quality. 4. Prioritize improvement projects. Once you clearly understand what each process gap costs, you can prioritize improvement efforts according to what's most critical to your company (e.g., customer service, time, money, perceived value or other criteria). Because improvement in any organization proceeds project by project, you must ensure that you're investing your effort in the right projects in the right order. Above all, you must continue to look at your business through your customers' eyes. It's possible--but pointless--to redesign your internal processes and never address your customers' real needs. However, don't remake your processes with only the customer in mind. You must also address your stakeholders' concerns and ensure that your customer-pleasing processes also meet the critical needs of your business. Six Sigma provides a means for keeping those sometimes competing voices in perfect harmony. From Fixing Defects to Fulfilling Business Needs If Six Sigma isn't just for manufacturing anymore, it isn't just for remedying defects, either. The renowned methodology can also be applied proactively to fulfill a pressing business need. The wireless telephone industry provides a case in point. Although the business has grown phenomenally during the past six years, it's now maturing. To maintain profitable growth, it must become increasingly necessary to acquire high-value customers as cost-effectively as possible. To maintain its competitive edge, a regional telephone company decided to slash its cost-per-gross-add of a new wireless customer. Through process mapping the entire sales cycle, a Six Sigma team determined that the greatest opportunity for reducing CPGA (Cost per Gross Add) lay in the costs of upgrading and replacing customers' malfunctioning handsets, as illustrated in the above diagram. The team zeroed in on the upgrade and exchange process, uncovering key areas where problems were likely to increase costs in returns and exchanges At this point, the team applied Pareto analysis to identify process capabilities and develop a program for improvement. The team broke return/exchanges into three classes based on whether the return occurred fewer than 30 days after the sale, more than 30 days to a year after the sale, and more than a year after the sale. The information allowed them to pinpoint improvements in each of these circumstances. The improvements included working more closely with the handset manufacturer, working with retailers to improve their internal processes, insisting on compliance with a return/exchange policy, automating some key processes to eliminate errors and reeducating customers on how best to handle problems with handsets. As a result of these efforts, the team reduced more than $236,500 in expenses annually.