Total quality management UNIT-1 Introduction to quality management Presented by N.Vigneshwari

TODAY’S NEWS New program aims to improve TQM data http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1993/tqm-0414.html

Review of yesterday’s class Customer focus

TODAY’S TOPIC CUSTOMER PERCEPTION OF QUALITY

Customer perception of quality Quality is what customer perceives it to be. However, as the customers go on changing their needs, the quality level needs are to be improved continuously to meet the customers demand. That’s why the basic concept of TQM philosophy is continuous process improvement

“Product Quality is customer perception related”. Deliver what ever you promise, do not promise more than you can deliver. Provide help ,support,& care for the customer. Accept faults and endeavor to avoid repeating them. Display your knowledge with humility.

An American society of quality (ASQ) survey ranked the customer perceptions in the following order: 1.Performance 2.Features 3.Service 4.Warranty 5.Price 6.Reputation

Performance Performance involves “fitness for use”. It indicates that the product and service is ready for the customers use at the time of sale. Availability: it is the probability that a product will operate when needed Reliability: it is freedom from failure over time, and Maintainability: it is the ease of keeping the product operable

Features Features are secondary characteristics of the product or service For example: The primary function of a cell phone is for communication, whereas other facilities such as calculator and alarm are features of the cell phone

Service Customer service is an intangible in nature. Intangible characteristics are those traits that are not quantifiable, but it contributes greatly to customer satisfaction. Organizations objective is to provide good quality of the product to the customer at the right time, even though the customers are not complaining about their service.

Warranty The product warranty represents an organization's public commitment to guarantee a level of service sufficient to satisfy the customer A warranty forces the organization to focus on the customer’s definition of product and service quality. An organization has to identify the characteristics of product and service quality and the importance the customer attaches to each of those characteristics. A warranty generates feedback by providing information on the product and service quality. It also forces the organization to develop a corrective action system. In present scenario, the warranty attracts and builds the market. It encourages customers to buy a service by reducing the risk of the purchase decision. Hence it generates more sales from existing customers by enhancing loyalty.

Price Nowadays customer is willing to pay a higher price to obtain value. Also customers expect high quality products at the lower price. Customers are preferring the organizations who are providing the greatest value for their money. For this purpose, customers are constantly evaluating all the organizations. In our highly competitive environment, each customer’s concept of value is continually changing. In order to overcome this challenge, the organizations should identify, verify and update each customer’s perception of value in relation to each product and service regularly.

Reputation It is obvious that customers are willing to buy products or services from a known, trusted and reputed organization. The total customer satisfaction is based on, not only with the product, the entire experience with the organization. This reputation of a firm brings the market to them. So organization should strive for customers for life.

References Total quality management – Dale H.Besterfield Carol Besterfield-Michna Glen H.Besterfield Mary Besterfield-Sacre

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