TQM --- total quality management or total quality muddle?
October 31, 1994; Canadian FundRaiser
At a meeting of the Canadian Direct Marketing Association, speaker Dobre Stosjic, president of the Strategic Planning Group and executive-in-residence at the University of Toronto, listed 10 major lessons related to service quality:
- Create a service quality plan.
- There is no substitute for listening to your customers.
- Shoddy research will lead to misunderstanding customer values.
- Keep the service promise.
- Don't have front-line employees build strategy, and executives deciding what to fix.
- Common sense is uncommon.
- Invest in recovery.
- Service quality is a team sport.
- Don't expect results immediately.
- Find ways to delight your customers.
Extrapolating on the last point, Stosjic highlighted these "Wow!" factors:
- Manage customer perceptions in order to exceed their expectations.
- Operate with unexpected grace, civility, appeal and spirit.
- Demonstrate extreme customer fairness to encourage customer trust.
- Provide customer service by employees with a passion for doing it well.
- Accept the philosophy, "If it ain't broke, it will break".
According to Stojsic, "Corporations and organizations would be well advised to embrace four basic value systems:
- Excellent service is a profit strategy.
- Passionate leadership will be a competitive advantage.
- Service quality is hard work.
- Excellent service is more fun for everyone!
Never become complacent about success, he warned. Instead, strive to be aware of customer needs, expectations and perceptions; use the right measurement tools to gain game plan information; and accept nothing but the highest standards.
So is TQM total quality management or a muddle? Service quality simply means that you promise only what you can deliver, and you deliver more than what you promise.
