Gemba Walks for Service Excellence : The Step-by-Step Guide for Identifying Service Delighters

Your customers have become increasingly sophisticated and more connected than ever—broadcasting real-time feedback to a cloud of followers who are watching your every move. As savvy customers continue to demand more for less, organizations that choose to rest on their laurels will quickly see their market share evaporate.

guides readers on a journey towards organizational effectiveness that supports a culture of service excellence. It provides a fresh perspective on how to apply Gemba Walks—visiting the areas where the service provider interacts directly with the customer—to identify new service delighters and make a lasting positive impression on customers.

Using an abundance of color pictures and hand-drawn graphics, Robert Petruska builds on his considerable experience implementing Lean and quality systems to demonstrate how to create the infrastructure required for service excellence to flourish. Presented in an easy-to-follow format that anyone in the service industry can enjoy, this workbook:

• Shares proven techniques used in Lean manufacturing that can easily be applied to the service industry
• Guides new employees and veterans alike through a journey filled with real-life stories that inspire confidence
• Contains hands-on exercises that allow you to immediately apply the ideas to your own work
• Includes downloadable resources with innovative "placemats" designed to provide stepping stones on a development path for your team to achieve a competitive advantage

Filled with real-world examples and stories of service excellence, the book will help you develop the counterintuitive thinking needed to discover new sources of customer delight. Designed to be used with your entire team, this workbook will guide your organization, step by step, through a plan for assessing, prioritizing, and implementing innovative ideas that will lead to unprecedented levels of service excellence.