4.1 Customer satisfaction: a broadening base
The 1980s and 1990s saw a large growth in the number of organisations that had a quality belief of some sort. Whether this was (is) ISO 9000, TQM or its cousins Total Quality Control (TQC), Total Quality Improvement (TQI), Total Quality Focus (TQF), etc., the aim was to improve productivity and show some financial returns to the company. Most of the quality initiatives had a market approach to them. For example, government contracts in many countries require the suppliers to be quality assured (so, ISO 9000); large organisations want their suppliers to be similarly audited and accredited. So the number of companies grows in response to the demands of others, rather than of their own initiative. In the automobile industry, Ford's Q101 is very wide spread: the big names require their suppliers to be accredited. In the higher education sector in Australia , Australian Universities Quality Assurance (AUQA) is rapidly going through its childhood phase and will spread to all universities in the country in the next few years. While this growth in accreditation and specialist standards that focus on industries is natural evolution, a very interesting development is taking place within the requirements of each quality principle. This is the increasing focus on the stakeholders. Note that this is not only customers! This includes employee and supplier satisfaction, based on good processes.
Loveday (1993) defined 10 elements of customer service that she considered essential to best practice. As you read through the list, note the inclusion of internal as well as external factors.
- Know and respect the customer - customers do have a choice and they will exercise it if they do not find the deal they are receiving satisfactory.
- Listen to the customer - and improve what they say is important to them.
- Measure everything - not as a management imposed activity but as a self assessment by every person at every level in the organisation. The results of these measurements should be open to everybody. This leads to continuous improvement.
- Train employees - the better skilled and equipped they are with knowledge, the better they can serve the organisation and its customers.
- Involve everyone - a quality initiative is not solely a management function. It is everyone's and influences customer service. People must have ownership of what they do.
- Communicate - with customers to tell them what is new and what improvements have taken place. Communicate with employees as well to tell them what is happening and their contribution in making it happen.
- Provide good leadership - to gain employee trust, to be able to delegate, coach and empower. Top management have to be able to show commitment, dedication and involvement to make good customer service possible.
- Employee satisfaction - only then can there be customer satisfaction. It is management's responsibility to make employees feel valued, trusted, skilled, resourced and free of fear of failure.
- Recognition - does not have to be through a monetary reward. Recognition can follow many innovative paths.
- Do not stop - the initiative to improve customer service must never be allowed to stop. The more an organisation does, the more the customers will expect.
Activity 4.1
With reference to Loveday's elements, list what you expect would be the likely causes of poor customer service in your organisation.
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