CUSTOMER SERVICE

Customer service



Customer service

Task 1

Quality

Quality as defined by the American National Standard Institute (ANSI) and the American Society for Quality (ASQ) is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs. Quality is a subjective term for which each person has his or her own definition. Quality can be also understood as a product or service free of deficiencies. Quality matters to any customer, future employee, or manager and it affects the entire organization from supplier to customer.

All processes in an organization are affected by quality, from locating a facility, designing products and services, planning production and service processes, designing jobs and work activities, and managing the supply chain, to planning and scheduling the flow of products or flow of customers through the system. Quality is a competitive strategic issue, because it leads to increased productivity, lower rework and scrap costs, lower warranty costs, lower production costs, increased profits, improved company reputation, higher customer satisfaction, and expanded markets.

Poor quality can be very costly to businesses and investors in the form of product recalls and lost customers. Numerous recalls of cars by General Motors in 2005 (more than 300,000 car recalls) and Chinese toy recalls in 2007 provide examples of serious quality issues. Poor-quality products and services result not only in higher costs but also lead to injuries, deaths, lawsuits, and more government regulations.

New Approaches

A new approach to quality is to build quality into the product and into the service. Interdisciplinary teams are created to improve quality in the design stage of a product or service. Managing processes to achieve maximum customer satisfaction at the lowest overall cost to the organization, while still maintaining process improvement, is called quality management. Planned and systematic activities implemented within the quality system that can be demonstrated to provide high confidence that a product or service will fulfill requirements for quality are called quality assurance. A systematic and independent examination or review whether quality activities comply with planned procedures and if they are effectively implemented to achieve objectives is called a quality audit. Quality audits can be performed by internal or external teams.

The global implications of quality are so important that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) developed ISO 9000 standards, which were revised in 2000 into more of a quality management system. For companies doing business in Europe and globally, it is critical to be ISO 9000 certified. Also, many countries established national quality awards. The United States established the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1987 to stimulate U.S. companies to improve quality and set as examples those companies that were successful in improving quality.

Among international quality awards there are the European Quality Award, the Canadian Quality Award, the Australian Business Excellence Award, and the Deming Prize in Japan. The American Society for Quality sponsors a number of individual awards, including the Armand V. Feigenbaum Medal, the Deming Medal, the ...