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• Module overview
• 1. The concept of Quality
  • 1.1 The concept of Quality
  • 1.2 The role of Quality in business
    • 1.2.1 Measuring Quality and performance

• 2. Quality Assurance

  • 2.1 The genesis of ISO 9000
  • 2.2 QA as a system
  • 2.3 The ISO 9000 series
    • 2.3.1 The nature of standards
  • 2.4 The path to accreditation
    • 2.4.1 Development
    • 2.4.2 Implementation
    • 2.4.3 Maintaining the system
  • 2.5 The role of Quality Assurance

• 3. Total Quality Management

  • 3.1 Productivity, profitability and quality
    • 3.1.1 Cost and quality
  • 3.2 TQM
  • 3.3 Implementing Quality
  • 3.4 The thinkers and their teachings
    • 3.4.1 Deming
    • 3.4.2 Juran
    • 3.4.3 Crosby
  • 3.5 TQM - core concepts
  • 3.6 Implementing TQM
    • 3.6.1 Establishing the quality culture

• 4. Kaizen - continuous improvement

  • 4.1 Customer satisfaction: a broadening base
    • 4.1.1 A comment on customer satisfaction
  • 4.2 The Motorola approach
    • 4.2.1 The background
  • 4.3 Implementing Six Sigma
    • 4.3.1 Six Sigma - a panacea?
    • 4.3.2 Innovation, kaizen and Six Sigma
  • 4.4 Process management
    • 4.4.1 Process improvement tools

• 5. Quality in transport

  • 5.1 Quality in a service industry
  • 5.2 Implementing quality in transport
    • 5.2.1 Benefits of environmental responsibility
    • 5.2.2Contribution to profitability
  • 5.3 Quality Costs
    • 5.3.1 Quality costing in practice
  • 5.4 Multimodal transport and sub-contracting
  • 5.5 Quality in the operator-client relationship
  • 5.6 Importance of Quality to transport services

• 6. Quality of customer service

  • 6.1 Link between quality and customer service
  • 6.2 Defining customer service quality
  • 6.3 Customer service quality failures
  • 6.4 Improving customer service quality
    • 6.4.1 Pros and cons: SERVQUAL in practice

• 7. The customer service concept

  • 7.1 Exceptional service = repeat business
  • 7.2 Value: the fundamental equation
  • 7.3 A note on terminology
  • 7.4 Recognise all the players
  • 7.5 Key element for success: know your customers
  • 7.6 What is a service?
  • 7.7 The rise of the service society

• 8. The role of management: corporate principles

  • 8.1 "Everybody pitches in"
    • 8.1.1 Raising the bar
    • 8.1.2The role of senior and top managers
  • 8.2 The functions of management
  • 8.3 Approaches to customer services: industry examples

• 9. Know your customer: exceeding expectations

  • 9.1 Identifying and fulfilling customers' needs and expectations
    • 9.1.1 Initial impressions: starting out right
    • 9.1.2 Identifying customer needs
    • 9.1.3 The right amount of attention
  • 9.2 The right attitude: the right approach
    • 9.2.1 Maintaining a positive attitude
    • 9.2.2 Positive attitudes offer a formula for success
    • 9.2.3 Promise good. Deliver great!
    • 9.2.4 Showing that you care
    • 9.2.5What is in it for you?
  • 9.3 Know your competition
    • 9.3.1 Key questions about competitors
  • 9.4 A note on ethics in customer service

• 10. Taking care of challenging customers: complaints are opportunities!

  • 10.1 Welcoming complaints
    • 10.1.1Some facts about customers
  • 10.2 Handling complaints:
    • 10.2.1 a postcard from the sharp end
    • 10.2.2 Recoveries
    • 10.2.3 What to do
  • 10.3 Testing your standards
    • 10.3.1 So how can you get assistance in using these techniques?
  • 10.4 Unhappy customers? Difficult customers?

• 11. The rights of the customer and the service provider

  • 11.1 What are these rights?
    • 11.1.1 Moral rights
    • 11.1.2 Consumer Rights
    • 11.1.3 Legal rights and responsibilities: the Trade Practices Act
  • 11.2 The impact of fair trading legislation
    • 11.2.1 Fair trading and communication
    • 11.2.2 Customer service pyramid
  • 11.3 A note on e-commerce

• 12. Communication in the servicescape

  • 12.1 Communicating effectively
    • 12.1.1The effect of ineffective communication
  • 12.2 The communication process
  • 12.3 Barriers to effective communication
    • 12.3.1 Individual perception
  • 12.4 Non-verbal communication
    • 12.4.1 A matter of terminology
    • 12.4.2 It is not what you say but how you say it
    • 12.4.3 A word of warning
  • 12.5 Customer service on the telephone:
    • 12.5.1 a performing art
    • 12.5.2 A note on speaker phones
  • 12.6 Email and the Net

11.3 A note on e-commerce

Developments in technology have changed the way we communicate and opened up opportunities for improving communication. You saw in the previous chapter how companies use websites to tell us about what they do and their approach to business. We can now give them an on-screen button to "buy". The following reading is reasonably lengthy but raises a number of issues involved in e-commerce and focuses on issues specific to the maritime transport industry.

Reading 11.4

"E-commerce sets its sites," Fairplay Today , 2000.

The next reading is a more general and outlines a standard (code of practice) for Internet commerce - it covers a range of different "maritime" situations.

Reading 11.5

Omond, J. 2000, "Decoding the practices".

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