Tqm Customer Satisfation

Total Quality Management Customer Satisfaction M. Ali Hassan [email protected]

Who is a customer?  External Customer – People who buy and

use products or services of an organization  Internal Customer – An employee within an organization who receives the output of another employee (who will be termed as an internal supplier). In TQM setting External customers define Quality and internal customers produce it.

Internal customer supplier link  For example employee A attaches some

components to a circuit board and then hands over the board to employee B, who adds different category of parts to the board and passes it on to employee C installs more components and this chain goes on until product is finished.

Importance of Internal customer-supplier Link  In this relationship, employee A is a

supplier to employee B and employee B is a customer of employee A. Similarly, Employee B will then become supplier for employee C and C will be customer of B.  In this chain B cannot produce quality in his work unless employee A has done his job correctly. This concept is called dependency of internal quality.

Understanding Customer defined Quality  Once you have understood who the customers are

and what your processes are, only then you will be able to appreciate what quality means in the new business world.  If customers are people who receive your work, only they can determine what quality is, only they can tell what they want and how they want it.  Quality begins with the customer. You must work with internal and external customers to determine their needs and collaborate with internal and external suppliers.

O my customer! Where are thou?  The customer must be the top priority. The

organization’s survival depends on it.  Reliable customers are the most important customers. Customers satisfied with their purchases become reliable customers  Production and delivery of high quality products and services is the only way to ensure customer satisfaction and retention

How to develop customer focus?  The key to develop customer focus is

putting employees in touch with customers and empowering those employees to act as necessary to satisfy the customers. There are number of ways to put employees in contact with customers. – Personal contact – Contact through phones or customer website – Through review of customer-provided data

Example of Zytec Corporation, Minnesota  At the heart of its corporate commitment to

customer satisfaction, the message to each of its 700 employees is: to solve problems for our customers, you are empowered to spend up to $1,000 on their behalf. No questions asked. There is no paperwork or authorization needed to spend money for a customer. Result: one employee chartered a plane to fly some missing parts to a customer in another state. Another bought new tables for a visiting lounge where customers frequently visited. Yet another one installed a vending machine for convenience of customers

Identifying external customer needs  In a TQM setting, customer needs are identified

clearly as a normal part of product development.  6-Step strategy for identifying customer needs– – – – – –

Research on industry needs Plan how to gather the information Gather the information Analyze the results Check the validity of your conclusions Take action towards product development

Key Indicators for customer satisfaction  Service standards derived from customer

requirements  Understanding your customer  Frontline empowerment  Infrastructure support to frontline people  Attention to HR functions for frontline  Proactive customer service systems  Using all information inputs  Quality requirements of market segments  Commitment to customer

Quality Tip from Deming  Profit in business comes from repeat

customers, customers that boast about your product and service and that brings friends with them. Fully allocated costs may well show that the profit in a transaction with a customer that comes back voluntarily may be 10 times the profit realized from a customer that responds to advertising and other persuasions.

Steps for identifying internal customer needs  Development of open and honest

communication system in the organization  Implementation of Teams and allocation of time and place for their meetings  Practice of MBWA (Management By Walking Around)  Suggestion boxes

Internal customer retention  Training of employees  Equitable pay  Benefits other than salary  Rewards for quality improvement  Involvement and empowerment  Teamwork  Sense of ownership