One big success was the “traffic light system” invented by the lab branch in Norlisk—a Russian mining town north of the Arctic Circle.
In response to the CEO’s call for reduced customer waiting times and better sales and service, the branch experimented with “varying standard procedures depending on how many customers were waiting in line.” They started with a paper mock-up and later developed green, yellow, and red lights that appear on tellers’ computer screens.
Branch managers activate the green light when lines are short—at such times, tellers are expected to explain things carefully, answer questions completely, and cross-sell services. A yellow light means things are getting busy and tellers should hurry customers a bit and do less cross-selling. A red light means “all hell has broken loose.”
Bugrov explained: “The standard time to serve a customer is greatly reduced. All customers with ‘long’ transactions get transferred to a dedicated teller. The tellers are forbidden to cross-sell and discourag