My wife was once hired to check over the policies and practices of a large complex organization. She read the mission statements, the promises, goals and aims. She compared the business hours of the various branches. What emerged was a picture that called for improvement, greater standardization and better cooperation between the various branches and offices. I think that dozens of organizations should hire her again.
She might not accept employment and it looks to me that many businesses need more than one person checking out their operation. Five or ten friendly but intelligent and alert people should probably do it. Maybe a couple of with-it teens, some middle-aged agents, and some senior citizens.
By the time you allow for employee needs, company plans and problems both short and long-term, various legal rules and restrictions, and fast changing public opinion at home and abroad, it is definitely possible that web pages don't make sense, that products turn out to be less expensive when not bought on special sales, that highly touted new products and services are less convenient and more trouble to use than what was in place. You get some "innocent" unmarked "consumers" to shop in your stores and with your phone operators and using your online web sites and make careful notes about their experiences. You read over their notes and talk with each of them.
You are not looking for the occasional slip-up but rather at the results of policies that tire or humiliate your employees, that tire or humiliate or irritate your customers. W.E.Deming, a major force in organization and operation improvement, used to say that 95% of the time that errors or difficulties occur, it is because of the design of the system, the rules and practices that are in force. Sometimes, it is actually because of the way machines and other equipment are designed and the way they work. He cautioned that what happens should be checked for frequency, for underlying reasons, to distinguish the temporary error or mishap from a source of recurring problems.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
