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Total Quality Management
Notes Identify customers’ needs
Determine opportunities for improvement.
Comment Card: A low-cost method of obtaining feedback from customers involves a comment
card, which can be attached to the warranty card and included with the product at the time of
purchase. The intent of the card is to get simple information, such as name, address, age,
occupation, and what influenced the customer’s decision to buy the product. However, there is
very little incentive for buyers to respond to this type of card, and the quality of the response
may not provide a true measure of customer’s feelings.
Customer Questionnaire: A customer questionnaire is a popular tool for obtaining opinions and
perceptions about an organization and its products and services. However, they can be costly
and time-consuming.
To make surveys more useful, it is best to remember eight points.
1. Client and customers are not the same.
2. Surveys raise customers’ expectations.
3. How you ask a question will determine how the question is answered.
4. The more specific the question, the better the answer.
5. You have only one chance and only 15 minutes.
6. The more time you spend in survey development, the less time you will spend in data
analysis and interpretation.
7. Who you ask is as important as what you ask.
8. Before the data are collected, you should know how you want to analyze and use the data.
When writing a survey, it is best to remember that more multiple choice questions can be
answered in 15 minutes than open-ended questions. To illustrate this point, compare the
following multiple-choice question to the open ended question.
How many times do you dine out in a mouth?
(a) 1 - 2 times
(b) 3 - 5 times
(c) 6 -10 times
(d) More than 10 times
Focus Group: Customer focus groups are a popular way to obtain feedback, but they too can be
very expensive. These groups are very effective for gathering information on customer
expectations and requirements.
Surveying a focus group is a research method used to final out what customers are really
thinking. A group of customers is assembled in a meeting room to answer a series of questions.
These carefully structured questions are asked by a skilled moderator, who probes into the
participants’ thoughts, ideas, perceptions, or comments.
Toll-Free Telephone Number: Toll-free (800/888) telephone numbers are an effective technique
for receiving complaint feedback. Organizations can respond faster and more cheaply to the
complaint. Such a number does not, however, reach those who decided not to buy the product or
those who discovered some likable feature on a competitor’s product. Toll-free numbers are in
use by at least 50% of all organizations with sales of at least $10 million.
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