Final Customer Purchasing from an Intermediary of the Product
Maintain Steps: Maintain steps include all activities required to keep the product in working order. These steps include the costs the customer incurs to diagnose and correct product problems.
B.
Resources – Reduce resources required for the use of the product
2.
Time – Reduce the time the customer must spend with the product
A. Reduce steps the customer must use with the product
Increase the quality of the product to reduce customer time in repair
Improve the initial quality or durability of the final product
| No. | SIC | Year | Note |
| 1 | 4841 | 2005 | Comcast's digital cable service offers an assortment of HD channels. It insists on sending out a technician to install HD because of the complexity of choosing the right connections. The setup takes only a few minutes and adds about $7 to the cable bill. |
| 2 | 5411 | 2001 | Whole Foods staff is allowed to take risks. This is consistent with the store's attitude of empowerment and creative freedom for its workforce. In addition, Whole Foods sometimes sacrifices its own profits to please the customer. |
| 3 | 5699 | 1996 | The new CEO of Lands End has focused on spending money to improve quality: refining classics, making seams on mesh knit shirts stronger and adding fleece to pockets, after problems with defective merchandise. He also increased employee benefits such as adoption assistance and mental-health referrals to encourage better customer service. |
| 4 | 5699 | 2005 | Limited develops its own design skills. It hired more product designers and reorganized so that brands could be handled centrally. Limited started to develop products more quickly. The company also reorganized into three business groups: beauty and personal care, lingerie, and apparel. |
| 5 | 5912 | 2002 | Walgreen Co. is picky when it comes to picking a new property site. Among other things, the team looks at whether the store can be easily seen, if it's easy to access and what kinds of businesses are located nearby. It's annual earnings averaged 18% growth between fiscal 1997 and 2001. Sales grew at an average rate of 17% a year. Walgreen stands to gain more from expansion than others because its real estate and inventory are higher quality than that of most other chains |
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