Work a repeat dispute back to root cause with 5 Whys
Use 5 Whys to move from unpaid symptom to process-level fix.
Invoice remains unpaid because the customer says the billed milestone was never approved. 5 Whys pushes the team from visible symptom to a fixable operational cause. Stopping early on “the customer is being difficult” leaves the underlying process untouched and guarantees repetition. Before “Send another reminder and ask Sales to calm the customer down.” After “RevOps owns a milestone-validation control before invoicing; Billing cannot issue the next invoice until the approved milestone source is attached.” Why 1 Why is the invoice unpaid? Because the customer says the milestone on line 2 was not approved. This confirms the visible symptom and…
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