Page 74 - DMGT524_TOTAL_QUALITY_MANAGEMENT

Unit 5: Customer Satisfaction

Two More Tools for Success Notes
HP uses two other tools to ensure that it is responding to the quality requirements of
customers.

Customer Quality Engineers are electrical engineers who work with Marketing to gather
customer data and with R&D and Manufacturing to make sure customer issues are addressed.
The task is not always easy. “Clients ask questions in their own terms,” says Collett.
Customer quality engineers thus need to translate these terms so that answers to their
real, often unarticulated problems can be found. Then they need to translate the solutions
developed by the division back into language that the customers will be able to understand
and utilize.
Process Improvement Teams attack customer issues throughout the Division’s team
concept. “A few of these teams interface so closely with customer divisions that they ask
the customers to be on one of our teams,” says Collett. “This certainly gives teams direct
feedback from customers.”

The teams solve customer problems and then return to customer locations to show them
what they have accomplished. “The concept works well, because customers essentially
drive the improvement process,” she adds.
Focus on the Future
Things have been improving. “Our quality is better, our planning processes are improving,
and teams are busy with improvement projects,” says Collett. “Sales are up, but we never
take customer satisfaction for granted. On an annual basis, we verify with our customers
that our processes and the way we are measuring ourselves reflect customer satisfaction.
We refine the measures more and more over time to make sure that they accurately reflect
what the customer wants.”
Questions
1. Why is it important to understand a company’s basic business processes in order to
deliver Customer satisfaction? Illustrate your answer.
2. How do you determine customers’ perceptions of your product or service?
3. What are the basic differences between the first model and the revised model in
Figure 1?
4. Explain the necessity for steps 3 and 4 of Hewlett-Packard’s 10-step planning process.
5. How would you verify that customers are satisfied? What key result indicators
might be used?
Source: Shailendra Nigam, Total Quality Management, Excel Books, New Delhi.

5.4 Summary

There are two distinct types of customers i.e. external and internal.
One of the most important factors for the success of an enterprise is its customers.

Customer satisfaction is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company
meet or surpass customer expectation.
As front line employees are in direct contact with people so they are in a better position to
understand a customer’s needs and problems.

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