Hire someone who is passionate
about quality. I think what the
prime characteristic or thing
that I look for is, can the guy
taste it, does he have the desire
to really contribute? So it’s not,
does he have the desire to earn
money? Obviously, everybody
needs a paycheck, but it’s more
than that. He has to have the
desire and the fire in his belly
to do great things — and
whether that’s a person who is
on our processing floor or
that’s an executive, it doesn’t
make any difference.
You have to get in their head
and find out what it’s all about
for them. If somebody is coming in the door and they’re
looking to make millions, that’s
the wrong predicate because
going after the money is not
where to build something.
There are not set questions
(to ask). It’s really like, ‘What
motivates you, what turns
you on, where do you want to
go, what do you want to do?’
I was talking to one of the
people who came to work for
us here, and he said, ‘You
know, I walked into the building and talked to a few people, and I want to work for
this company.’
And he’s done a phenomenal job; he just wanted to
work for CBR.
Create a process for quality
accountability. We push
empowerment down to
lower levels of the company
and make sure our people
are empowered but also that
they’re accountable and
responsible.
Our customers give us a
report card — we get about
100 report cards a day from
our clients, and they fill
them out online, and they
tell us what they think of
our service. We have what
we call ‘in the reds,’ and an
‘in the red’ is somebody
who is not satisfied. And if
there is a ‘not satisfied,’ I
get a copy of it, my COO
gets a copy, the department
manager does as well as the
person who handled that
call.
And that department manager has to contact that
client within 48 hours and
report back and find out
what we could have done to
make that interaction outstanding. Everybody knows
what ‘in the red’ is, but an ‘in
the red’ is an opportunity for
us to improve.
It’s not a scolding at all. In
fact, we … take the whole
customer improvement
process as an opportunity
for us to never have that
happen again. And if that
never happens again, you
never have to fix it again,
and that says you have a
lower cost of product
because you start to run it
very efficiently.
What your quality process
helps you do is become the
leader in the market — and
that’s why I said quality is
cheap, because you have
lower cost.
HOW TO REACH: Cord Blood Registry, (888) 932-6568 or www.cordblood.com
