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Most businesses lose time, margin and customers at the handovers nobody owns. Mena and I map the full customer journey, the backbone of systems and processes for business growth, then show how to assign owners and hunt down hidden waste.
- Every business runs on five stages: reach, sales, delivery, billing and after-sales care. Southwest Airlines’ 2022 meltdown shows what processes nobody can see end up costingGive each stage one directly responsible individual (Apple’s DRI idea) and a defined output. “The sales team looks after sales” isn’t an assignment; “sales ends with a signed proposal and deposit in hand” isScaling usually breaks business operations at the handovers, not inside the stages. When one owner is accountable for each handover, the founder can stop doing everything in the businessToyota’s seven wastes are a useful lens for finding the steps your processes have outgrown, such as duplicate spreadsheets or chasing information that should arrive automatically
Chapters
00:00 - Zooming out from one process to the whole business
01:20 - Why you can’t fix a process you can’t see
03:27 - Southwest Airlines: what invisible processes cost
05:20 - The five-stage customer journey
07:09 - Airtasker: a journey designed end to end
09:06 - One owner and one defined output per stage
10:56 - Apple’s directly responsible individual
13:28 - When handovers fail: the bank promotion example
16:41 - Hunting waste: Toyota’s seven categories
19:52 - Auditing your core processes
22:49 - What to do next: four steps
References
- Ep 198: Trust is the real thing your customer is buying Ep 200, the customer advocacy episode Ep 201, the founder-as-hero episode
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