These Guys Got it Right

My cell phone was down to four minutes talk time...I had to get a new
battery. Stopping by the wireless
phone store where I got it, I found out they no longer stocked it. They
sent me to a battery store
downtown. Arriving there, they said "Sure, we have one of them" but
couldn't find it. It seemed their
inventory system was off. By one.

"But, ya know, we sure can order one for you."
"So how long before it gets here?"
"Oh, a week from Monday."
"Hmmmm. How much will it be?"
Tap, tap, tap. "Looks like $62.50. Plus tax."
Gulp. "I'll think about it." And I headed out.

At home, I jumped on the web and quickly found href="http://phonebatteries.com" Phone
Batteries. In three clicks, I found the battery for my phone. Price?
$28. Four more clicks and some credit card info and it was ordered.
$32.00,
delivered in four days. Later that Saturday, I had email confirmation of
the
order. On Monday, I had a UPS tracing number to track the package's
progress. Right as promised, I had the battery on Thursday, complete with
conditioning instructions for how to charge it the first time.

I've had the battery for a week now. Have been through the prescribed three
conditioning cycles. I haven't
bothered to turn it off yet. And it just works. I smile every time I make
a call.

I have no idea if the folks at Phone Batteries are using lean systems or
not.
But clearly, they focused on what I wanted. A battery. With minimal
hassles at a good price. And, they clearly had systems to deliver on that
promise.

Cut out some fluff today. Figure out what your internal or external
customer
wants and deliver it. Just it. And do it quickly.

Feel free to forward to a friend.
Email me