Customer Satisfaction And Employee Involvement

Customer Satisfaction and Employee Involvement

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Customer Satisfaction >

is the key aim in selling process. It is estimated that it costs five times as much to attract new customers as to retain an existing one. The relationship between the customer and the organization is very important.

Who is the Customer? >

External Customer - those who receive the final products. Occurs normally at the organizational level

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Internal Customers - occur at the process and crossdepartmental levels within the company

Identifying Customers: >

What parts or products are produced?

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Who uses our parts or products?

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Who do we call, correspond/interact with?

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Who supplied the inputs to the process?

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Service

As per the international standard: >

The results generated, by activities at the interface between the organization and the customer and by the organization’s internal activities, to meet customer needs.

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Service Quality

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Is a comparison of expectations with performance.

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A business with high service quality will meet customer needs whilst remaining economically competitive.

Service recovery is an important and effective customer retention tool. One way an organization can ensure repeat business is by developing a strong customer service program that includes service recovery as an essential component. The concept of service recovery involves the service provider taking responsive action to “recover” lost or dissatisfied customers and convert them into satisfied customers. Service recovery has proven to be cost-effective in other service industries.

Features of Services: >

Speed

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Delivery Schedule

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Care in Handling

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Each service offering is different

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Customer Requirements are difficult to Comprehend

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Difficulty in Estimating Cost

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Difficulty in measuring performance of service

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Difficulty in Marketing Service

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Difficulty in measuring customer satisfaction

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Psychology of customers

Features of Services: >

Speed – designs which enable speed and delivery with appropriate staffing are critical requirements for success in the service industry

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Delivery schedule – adhering to a time schedule is quite critical in the service industry. Many projects fail due to the failure to keep up to a time schedule. Such delays result in loss of money and can even lead to the closure of the service organization.

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Care in handling – the deliverables have to be handled carefully. The customers should also be handled carefully. If the deliverables are not handled carefully, they may break or perish. The mishandling of customers will also cause hardship in the form of the loss of goodwill and repetition of orders.

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Each service offering is different – each service requirement is different as it depends upon the personal preferences of individuals. It is designed to fulfil the individual needs of customers.

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Customer requirements are Difficult to Comprehend – One has to communicate effectively with the customer to know his true requirements.

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Difficulty in estimating cost – Service charges essentially comprise of the cost of materials, the man-hours, machine hours that will be utilized and the cost of overhead.

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Features of Services

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Difficulty in Measuring Performance of Services – One has to formulate indirect parameters for measuring the quality of services. The process could be clearly defined with a number of subprocesses.

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Difficulty in Marketing services – The service industry has to do two things for marketing of the services namely: (1) personal contact with potential buyers; (2) building credibility of the organization by good services consistently

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Difficulty in Measuring Customer Satisfaction – The product has to be designed with quality, reliability, and with good aesthetics and the manufacturer should have a good after sales service to attract the customer.

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Psychology of Customers – the most important requirement for success in any industry is to understand the psychology of customers.

Customer Delight >

Customer delight is defined as “surprising a customer by exceeding his/her expectations and thus creating a positive emotional reaction”. At work, some of us deal directly with people called customers, and others have managers or “internal customers” that we aim to delight just the same.

Customer Orientation >

Running a business with the sole motive of serving one or more customers and satisfying them. This happens when there is a win-win situation between the organization and the buyer.

Customer Attrition >

“If the product is good then customer will come back (again); If not, the product will come back (returned)”

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Every organization has to find out, at any given time how many customers have been lost rather than how may customers they are serving at that time. The losing of a higher number of customers indicates falling standards with regard to quality of services provided.

According to Tom Peters, the customers leave because of the following reasons: -

15 percent because of quality problems

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15 percent because of higher price

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70 percent did not enjoy doing business with the organization

Contractual Requirements of customers >

Quality: service/product characteristics

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Time schedule for delivery

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Price

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Services such as responsibility for installation, service during warranty and post warranty, etc.

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Documentation support

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Training support

Non-Contractual Requirements of customers >

Quality (not documented before)

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Implied requirements

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Value for the money spent

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Environment of conducting business and the friendliness of the customer service personnel of the organization, etc.

Ways of Delighting Customers >

The organization should be familiar with general human nature and try to understand the hidden requirements of their customers.

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In a service organization, customers do not generally mind paying more, but they definitely mind how they are received, dealt with, and the quality of the product or service.

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The organization can give pleasant surprises to the customer by giving additional features or items

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Offering customers what they won’t have expected

C.O.M.F.O.R.T. by D.H. Stamatis >

Caring

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Observant

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Mindful

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Friendly

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Obliging

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Responsible

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Tactful

C.O.M.F.O.R.T. by D.H. Stamatis >

Caring – The customer service employees should not only be, but perceived to be very interested in finding out the real needs of the customers and help them to buy what they really intend to buy, product or service.

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Observant – Each customer service personnel should be a good observer. This will help them to understand the customer requirements better

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Mindful – The organization has to strive to meet the customer needs.

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Friendly – The customer service employees have to be friendly with the customers. They should give as much information as possible to the customers and greet them with a smile.

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Obliging – The organization should feel obliged that the customer has visited them with an enquiry. The customer contact employees should answer the customer queries as it may add to the marketing efforts of the organization

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Responsible – it is very important that the organization feels the responsibility of fulfilling the quality requirements, time schedule requirements, delivery requirements and service requirements as well as price requirements.

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Tactful – Tactful handling the customers will make the customers understand and cooperate in completing the jobs successfully.

THE KANO MODEL

The Kano model is a theory of product development and customer satisfaction developed in the 1980s by Professor Noriaki Kano. >

The Kano model offers some insight into the product attributes which are perceived to be important to customers. The purpose of the tool is to support product specification and discussion through better development of team understanding. Kano's model focuses on differentiating product features, as opposed to focusing initially on customer needs. Kano also produced a methodology for mapping consumer responses to questionnaires onto his model.

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Three types of responses of a customer with regard to quality of a product or service: - basic quality - performance quality - excitement quality

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Basic Quality – Also called as threshold quality

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If the functions are not implemented as agreed, then it results in lower levels of satisfaction as compared to higher levels of satisfaction, when fully implemented. Customers will definitely complain if the basic quality attributes are not fulfilled.

Fulfilling the basic quality is measured by the following: * Customer complaints * warranty data * Product recalls * Number of lawsuits * Things gone wrong * Other failure reports >

Performance Quality – This measures satisfaction proportionate to the performance of the product.

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Excitement Quality – Received some feature or attribute that they did not expect or think of.

Agreed Customer Requirements 1. Invest Time For Understanding Customer Requirement .Every service offering is different which dictates that determining customer requirements is not a onetime affair. Even in manufacturing, requirements of customers may change suddenly. Organization, instead of trying to save resource should provide adequate resources for understanding the correct requirements.

2. Find out the Right Requirements First In Service Industry it is difficult to described the end product in clear terms. Service offering is more easily described through subjective parameters rather than objective parameters. Because of this, service industry must always ensure customer satisfaction. In a service industry, the customers meet the service provider and express their requirements orally. 3. Reasons when doubts about requirements may not be able to clarify.  Customer may not be available till the delivery time  Ego interfering with communications  Too busy with other jobs in hand  Belief that communications may lead to more work without additional payment  Fear of senior management coming to know about the problem. 4. Checklist for eliminating Communication Gap  This is use to clarify or understand the requirements/preference of the customers.  Checklist will be given to customers and filled up before they discuss about the service to be provided. 5. Review The Contract/Requirements  Before the final acceptance of the contract, the both parties, the customer and Service provider should get a contract review done.  Clearly define the customer’s preference, it might be based on the contract or verbal communication

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6. Foresee and Provide for Amendments  Before even agreeing to provide the service, the customer and the service provider should agree upon how to amend the service agreement later on.  Always project for a change  Service provider cannot afford to say “No” 7. Documented Policy  As Deming said, “IT is not meeting our own requirements, but the customers” for success of the business.  Documenting Customers requirement by policy for employees/organization and customers guide.  The organization should document its policy and procedure for methodology for requirement elicitation from customers including communication, review of contracts and handling conflicts between customer and organization 8. Code of good Customer Handling Practices Two Checkpoints in a service requirement Finalization. 1. Initial Discussion the customer contact person has with the customer. 2. Contract Review in the organization.  Whatever mistakes and pitfalls are found should be identified and documented.  The senior management person will be the one to formulate the Code base from the observations.  Manual/guide of Employees in handling Customers. Revision can be done as necessary.

Customer Perceived Quality

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Perceived quality can be defined as the customer's perception of the overall quality or superiority of a product or service with respect to its intended purpose, relative to alternatives. Perceived quality is, first, a perception by customers.

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Perceived quality is, first, a perception by customers. It thus differs from several related concepts, such as:

a) Actual or objective quality: the extent to which the product or service delivers superior service b) Product-based quality: the nature and quantity of ingredients, features, or services included c) Manufacturing quality: conformance to specification, the "zero defect" goal >

All that really counts is the customer perception of quality. This is dependent on 6 simple steps:

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1. Offer Prompt Attention: Everyone wants prompt attention. The longer a caller has to hold, get passed between departments, wait for someone to find information or have to leave a voice mail message, waiting in limbo for a response, the more impatient they become. You need a documented process to ensure callers are routed to a person who can assist them from the get-go. You also need a way to monitor your service levels so you can take decisive action if you are seeing delays. The public has been subjected to such awful service levels during most of their interactions that they are genuinely grateful to receive good service. 2. Have a helpful Patient Attitude: If your caller thinks that someone doesn’t really want to help them and can’t wait to get rid of them, they can go from 0 to 100 on the angry scale in about one second flat. Genuine caring and patience are the only ways to create a real sense of satisfaction. Regularly coaching the personnel who handle your calls on how to project the right attitude and then monitoring their progress is a must. 3. Listen and Acknowledge: This is second only to food and shelter in the human hierarchy of needs. We have an overwhelming desire to be understood. It is a great relief when someone has acknowledged our needs. It is deeply frustrating when you feel that isn’t happening. Good active listening skills require training and practice. 4. Resolve Problems Rather than Placing Blame: We seem to be allergic to blame and our instant reflex is to come up with lots of excuses for why a situation isn’t our fault. Throwing blame back in a caller’s lap is sure to provoke the same reaction in them. Then things start to escalate. Focus your personnel on resolving problems during calls rather than finding fault. Recording calls is a great teaching tool. You can share best practices and give specific coaching to representatives with weaker skills. 5. Set Accurate Expectations: If you don’t set accurate expectations, you have guaranteed that you are going to disappoint a customer. One of your most important goals during every call should be to instill confidence in callers. You may not be able to give them everything they might have liked, but the focus of your conversations should be about what you can do for them and specifically how and when important things will happen. This will only occur if you have trained your employees on how your internal processes actually work and the time frames they operate within. 6.Show Appreciation: An attitude of genuine appreciation instantly makes a caller more cooperative and helpful. The key word here is genuine. Phony will never fly. Do your employees understand how your clients are contributing to your company and their individual success? Do they know who your top 20 accounts are? Have you explained that small accounts can often be more profitable than large ones? Have you told them why your company has survived the recession when many have not?

Customer Feedback and Complaints Resolution >

Customer feedback is a marketing term that describes the process of obtaining a customer’s opinion about a business, product or service.

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Customer feedback is so important because it provides marketers and business owners with insight that they can use to improve their business, products and/or overall customer experience.

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Customer Feedback and Complaints Resolution

The following are the top six reasons why customer feedback is important to your business. 1. It can help improve a product or service Listening to your customers is the only way to guarantee you create a product or service that they actually want to buy. Customer feedback is commonly used throughout the product development process to ensure that the end product is something that solves a customer’s problem or fulfils a need. 2. It offers the best way to measure customer satisfaction >

Measuring customer satisfaction helps you determine whether your product or service meets or surpasses customer expectations. Customer feedback surveys help you measure customer satisfaction.

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These can be done in person, via email, via the phone or even inside a website or mobile app. Using rating-based questions when you are measuring customer satisfaction will help you track and monitor how happy (or unhappy) your customers are over time.

3. It provides actionable insight to create a better customer experience >

Improving the customer experience should be the primary reason you gather customer feedback. The process of winning new business and retaining existing customers is getting harder and harder. Offering an amazing experience that keeps your customers coming back and referring their friends to you is the best way you can stand out from your competition.

4. It can help improve customer retention >

Customer feedback offers a direct line of communication with your customer so you can determine if they are not happy with the product or service you are delivering before you lose their business.

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A happy customer is a retained customer. By requesting customer feedback surveys regularly, you can ensure that you keep the finger on the pulse. If a customer becomes frustrated or perceives a competitive offer to be better, they will start exploring their options and may cancel their contract or stop doing business with you. By listening to your unhappy customers, you can use the feedback to ensure all of customers have a better experience and continue wanting to do business with you.

5. It delivers tangible data that can be used to make better business decisions >

The best business decisions are based off data, not hunches. Too many times business owners and marketers make big calls based off inaccurate data. Customer feedback is the holy grail of tangible data. You can gather real insight into how your customers really feel about the product or service you deliver.

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Use this feedback to guide your business and marketing decisions. If a large percentage of customers suggest a product feature or want an additional customer service channel, listen to them! Your customers are your livelihood.

6. It can be used to identify customer advocates >

Customer advocates are your best marketing campaigns. They offer tremendous value at very little cost. But how do you identify advocates?

Customer feedback. When you gather feedback from your customers, advocates are the ones who give you high scores. Contact these customers and build stronger, mutually-beneficial relationships. Customer feedback >

Customer feedback is a marketing term that describes the process of obtaining a customer's opinion about a business, product or service. ... The following are the top six reasons why customer feedback is important to your business. Sep 29, 2014

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Customer feedback provides you with valuable insight into what your customers think about your product or service. This insight can help you create a product that customers want to buy and create an experience that exceeds expectations and keeps customers coming back for more.

Resolution's complaint process >

Our complaint procedure exists to make sure that members follow the Code of Practice.

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As Resolution is not a regulator, we only take complaints about breaches of the Code of Practice, or in the case of Resolution mediators, the Family Mediation Council Code of Practice. We can give you information of who to complain to if it isn't about our Code.

The Role of Complaint Management in the Service Recovery Process >

Patient satisfaction and retention can be influenced by the development of an effective service recovery program that can identify complaints and remedy failure points in the service system. Patient complaints provide organizations with an opportunity to resolve unsatisfactory situations and to track complaint data for quality improvement purposes.

Service recovery >

Service recovery is an important and effective customer retention tool. One way an organization can ensure repeat business is by developing a strong customer service program that includes service recovery as an essential component. The concept of service recovery involves the service provider taking responsive action to “recover” lost or dissatisfied customers and convert them into satisfied customers. Service recovery has proven to be cost-effective in other service industries.

The complaint management process The complaint management process involves six steps that organizations can use to influence effective service recovery:

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(1) Encourage complaints as a quality improvement tool; (2) establish a team of representatives to handle complaints; (3) resolve customer problems quickly and effectively; (4) develop a complaint database; (5) Commit to identifying failure points in the service system; and (6) Track trends and use information to improve service processes.

10 Tips for Dealing with Customer Complaints 1. Acknowledge Complaint >

Complaining customers have a perception that somehow their needs and expectations were not met. Acknowledging their concern is the first step in diffusing the emotion of an upset customer.

2. Don’t Take it Personal >

One of the most difficult aspects of listening to complaints is having the ability to separate yourself from the issue. When someone is yelling at you, it is difficult to not take it personal. However, it is important to remember that the complaint is not about you; it is about a perception of a need that was not met.

3. Apologize >

An apology is the next tool you can use to diffuse an upset customer. Apologizing with sincerity can do a lot to help ease the tension of high emotions. Look the customer in the eye, smile and sincerely apologize and communicate that their issue is important and that you want to make things right for them.

4. Maintain Positive Communication >

When listening to a complaining customer, keep your facial expressions and responses as positive as possible. Do not do anything that could cause more emotional response and make matters worse. Be as pleasant as possible as you try to resolve the issue for the customer.

5. Work Toward a Solution >

Allow the customer to vent and explain their issue. This is a good time to try and gather all the details of the situation and try to find out where the breakdown happened.

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Sometimes there are minor misunderstandings or breakdowns in communication that can create an emotional response to a situation. Find out the facts and then try to find out what the customer wants.

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6. Give the Customer Options >

An upset customer is not interested in what you can’t do, so focus on what you cando.

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You probably won’t always be able to do exactly what the customer wants but there is always something you can do.

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Focus on what you can offer the customer.

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Customers don’t necessarily want to hear the why behind an issue; they just want their problem solved.

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Try to offer a couple options of things you can do to fix the situation for them.

7. Document and Track Complaints >

It is important to document and track complaints. There are formal complaint tracking systems that can help you keep track of complaints.

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Document: Date, time, description of complaint, employees involved, what customer wanted, what was given to the customer, was the issue resolved, follow-up with the customer at a later time.

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It is always important to check with a customer after the fact to ensure that their issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

8. Trend Complaints >

Collecting complaint data can help provide the information needed to resolve systemic problems that may not be as evident without supporting data.

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As an example, if you continually get the same complaint about the same employee, there may be an issue with the employee and the way they provide a service or respond to customer needs. This could be a training issue or a performance issue. This kind of information is also helpful to have during performance appraisal time.

9. Don’t Overreact to Outliers >

Sometimes things happen and should be classified as outliers. As an example, if a storm hits and the power goes out and affects the electronic registers causing long wait times at the checkout, the long waits are an outlier and should not necessarily give cause for creating a new process.

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However, looking into back-up power issues and working toward a proactive plan to ensure the operation is sustainable in the absence of power can be a way to eliminate future issues.

10. Service Recovery >

There is a theory that if there is an effort to recover from a bad service experience, that the customer will be more loyal to the organization. Create a service recovery process and

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empower employees to take action and offer solutions to customers for bad service experiences. >

Finally, customers are human and deserved to be treated fairly and with dignity and respect. However, a customer that crosses the line of appropriate communication, specifically cursing and threatening should not be tolerated. Good communication skills in response to a complaint can help minimize angry emotions.

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Employees are the strength of an organization. They are the prime contributors to its success.  Motivation  Teamwork  Training and mentoring  Recognition and rewards  Feedback and performance appraisal  Empowerment Theory X by Sigmund Freud Theory X characterizes employees as given below:  Avoid work  No ambition  No initiative  Do not take responsibility  Needs security To make them work, the management has to do the following:  Reward  Coerce  Intimidate  Punish Theory Y by Douglas McGregor McGregor’s theory of people are given below:  Want to learn  Work is a natural activity  Have self-discipline  Develop themselves

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Theory Z by Abraham Maslow He believes that five basic humans needs motivate the employees.

Herzberg’s Theory >

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Frederick Herzberg has divided the motivational aspects of human beings into the following: -

Hygiene Theory

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Motivation

HYGIENE THEORY : -

the company

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Its policies and its administration

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The kind of supervision which people receive while on the job

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Working conditions

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Interpersonal relations

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salary

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Status

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security

MOTIVATION : -

Achievement

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Recognition for achievement

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Interest in the task

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Responsibility for enlarged task

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Growth and advancement to higher level tasks

TEAMWORK >

MANAGEMENT’S ROLE IN ENABLING TEAMWORK -

Responsibility

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Authority

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Wherewithal for accomplishing the task

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Criteria of measurement of the work output

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TEAMWORK

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Results in a Win–Win Situation -

Win-win situation demands that each employee respects the views of other employees and regards the selfesteem of all the colleagues in the team.

To summarize, the team can have the ff. benefits if they work for a win-win situation: n Achieve dramatic results, which individuals can’t n Make best use of skills of each member of the team n Make right decision n Get more enjoyment and job satisfaction The problems of win-lose are summarized below: -

Waste time

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Creates conflict

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Stops people listening

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Spoils happiness and health of team members

Do Rewards Disrupt Teamwork?  Reward encourage people to practice teamwork. Awards should be given to motivate the team of people, who have contributed in a great measure. In other words, the output of team should be given more importance than the output of the individuals. This should not curtail the innovation of individuals.

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EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATIONS >

In every organization, communication is a three way process for each employee, as given below:

 To one, employee is working for supervisors/managers  To the persons working for him subordinates/junior employees.  To the persons one works with, the peers, counterparts, customers and suppliers (both internal and external) >

Necessity for Communicating Upwards - upward communication means communicating with seniors.

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Communication with juniors - every employee should communicate with juniors. The junior employee will not have the same education, experience and expertise as that of the senior. Therefore, the senior has to communicate with the junior patiently and in detail.

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Communication with Peers - communication with peers is equally important. This has assumed significance since the organization have to establish customer-suppliers relationship to practice TQM.

TRAINING AND MENTORING >

Necessity for Orientation Training - the employees in their formal education learn many techniques covering wide range of topics, from basic principles to advance topics.

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The orientation training should help the employees to understand the ff, in particular:

 Objectives of the organization  Requirements and expectations from his team  His role  His responsibility  His authority  The know-how and know-why of the jobs to be undertaken on day to day basis  Familiarity and skill in operating the tools or machinery connected with the job in hand.

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Experienced Recruits Need More Orientation - in the service sector, obsolescence settles in fast. Therefore, there is a continual change in the business. This means, that the employees have to acquire the skills needed for designing, manufacturing, delivering, and servicing the updated or new products or services.

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There is a reluctant on the part of the management to send employees for training, due to some ff. reasons:

 Excessive workload in the organization, which does not permit sending them for training  Non-availability of appropriate training courses  Fear of migration of employees after training

PDCA for Training >

Though training contributes to the prosperity of an organization, it also costs money. Therefore, PDCA should be used for training of employees in every organization.

 Plan for Training – the training needs and the methodology should be planned and documented.  Provide Training – Employees should be deputed for training as planned.  Measure Training Effectiveness – After the employee undergoes training, the effectiveness of training should be assessed formally.  Improve Training Effectiveness RECOGNITION AND REWARD >

Recognition of Achievement is Important -

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it is important to recognize achievement of employees, customers and suppliers. Every employee or supplier has to meet the requirements to satisfy his customers. However, there would be a few teams, and few suppliers, which will excel in their contributions. Meeting customer requirements is not enough for recognition. Exceeding customer requirements or satisfying customer, whether internal or external can be considered to be an achievement.

Select a Few Best Performers

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the attribute for selection of best performing employees in ETDC, Chennai are given below:  Commitment  Creativity  Flexibility  Adaptability  Determination  Responsibility

Type of Awards >

The organization should select the award appropriately. It could be appreciation in an annual meeting, certificates, mementos, and cash awards. No matter what is the type of award, the employees will definitely be motivated. However, the organization should be consistent in giving the awards.

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RECOGNITION AND REWARD

Enable Happiness All Around >

The recognition and award program should help the organization amongst all the employees. It should not lead to bitterness amongst employees and should not demotivate them. Hence, before venturing into the recognition program, the management has to give considerable thought and then only finalize the strategy for recognition and awards.

FEEDBACK AND PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL >

Feedback Essential both for Employees and Management. It is more humane to be curious to know about the result of an action. Actions, are taken not only by management, but also by junior employees in the organization. Therefore, both the management and the employees should look forward to getting a feedback on the action taken, the employees from the management and vice versa, in the interest of improving quality continuously.

Management Should Seek Feedback >

One of the responsibility of the management is to seek feedback. The management should therefore adopt stable strategies to get the right feedback from the employees as well as customers. Management By Walking Around (MBWA) – concept advocated by Tom Peters to get the feedback. It should be practiced in the right manner for getting the desired results.

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Feedback to the Employees - Every employee in the organization should receive a feedback on the quality of his output. Quality does not only mean the conformance of the product or service to the requirements, but also the timeliness, behavioral requirements and all attributes of TQM.

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Giving Appropriate Feedback - When a feedback is given, it should be the most appropriate. The feedback should never be exaggerated or under played; it should be correct feedback.

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Timely Feedback - should never be accumulated forever. The feedback, as and when required, should be given at the appropriate time. The feedback session could be short and brief so that it will be taken seriously.

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Vatch Effect of Feedback - Each feedback session is a corrective action of the system, to use the terminology of ISO 9001. Therefore, the effect of feedback has to be monitored, studied and analyze. If the feedback is given in an appropriate manner and if it is right then definitely the employee will be motivated to correct himself.

Continuous Feedback >

Like continuous improvement, feedback should also be given continuously. The feedback will be never ending for any of the supervisory persons, since the system will try to drift away from the set goals often and the management will be required to correct the system through the feedback mechanism.

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL Performance appraisal used for the development of the employees. >

Reports should be used by the management , for various purposes as:

n Promotion n Granting of additional increments n Training the employees n Reallocation of duties EMPOWERMENT

n Empowerment and ownership are synonymous. n Empowerment of employees is one the latest management techniques deployed to result in continuous improvement in the organization.

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n Empowerment means involvement of all the employees for improvement of processes on continual basis. n Empowerment is just the opposite of strict hierarchical “ do what I say ” approach in the organization n Empowerment means transfer of responsibility of satisfying customer to employees. It means that the employees own the process of satisfying the customers. Empowerment is not without bounds >

Empowerment of employees is not without bounds or limitations. It should be structured and planned to achieve the corporate goals in the TQM way. the employees are aligned with the business direction as brought out in the vision and mission statements of the CEO. They to be made to understand their performance boundaries and expected performance results.

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Empower teams, not individuals A team of employees will be empowered not the individuals. Even when an individual is empowered, It is done so in his capacity as the coordinator of the team. It is not personal to individual.

n The team has to achieve the objectives set forth by the management. n The team has to identify the best course of action every context. n The team has to take decisions on its own within its own boundaries. n The team function in a democratic manner to achieve success. STEPS INVOLVED IN EMPOWERING >

The ff. steps are involved in the operation of self-managed teams:

n Agree on what they will produce or carry out n Decide how to organize the team n Decide on the responsibility within the team n Decide on flow of work n Audit the process n Decide on improvement and restart Fundamental Requirements of Management for Successful Empowerment. Top management should take the following actions to practice empowerment: 1. Accept that teamwork is more beneficial and hierarchical management 2. Invest time and money on the team building and training before empowerment 3. Formulate a clear-cut, unambiguous vision and mission statement and the system for quality 4. Be prepared to spend more time at the initial stages and later o n to listen to the problems of the team members.

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5. Prepare to wait patiently for the success of empowered team 6. Prepare to equip the teams with facts and trust them 7. Provide support and tools wherever required for problem solving 8. Reward worthy teams 9. Provide communications infrastructure and Information Technology infrastructure for the teams to carry on the tasks, without difficulty

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Chapter 5: CUSTOMER SATISFACTION Question and Answer Question # 1: Define Customer Satisfaction. Answer: It is the key aim in selling process. It is estimated that it costs five times as much to attract new customers as to retain an existing one. The relationship between the customer and the organization is very important. Question # 2: Classify the two types of customers. Answer: External Customer - those who receive the final products. Occurs normally at the organizational level Internal Customers - occur at the process and cross-departmental levels within the company Question # 3: Define service as per the international standard. Answer: The results generated, by activities at the interface between the organization and the customer and by the organization’s internal activities, to meet customer needs. Question # 4: Why is important in organization/business to developed a strong service program that includes service recovery? Answer: Service recovery is an important and effective customer retention tool. One way an organization can ensure repeat business is by developing a strong customer service program that includes service recovery as an essential component. The concept of service recovery involves the service provider taking responsive action to “recover” lost or dissatisfied customers and convert them into satisfied customers. Service recovery has proven to be cost-effective in other service industries. Question # 5: Give atleast 3 features of service and explain briefly. Answer: Speed Customer Satisfaction and Employee Involvement

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Delivery Schedule Care in Handling Each service offering is different Customer Requirements are difficult to Comprehend Difficulty in Estimating Cost Difficulty in measuring performance of service Difficulty in Marketing Service Difficulty in measuring customer satisfaction Psychology of customers Question # 6: What is customer delight? Answer: Customer delight is defined as “surprising a customer by exceeding his/her expectations and thus creating a positive emotional reaction”. At work, some of us deal directly with people called customers, and others have managers or “internal customers” that we aim to delight just the same. Question # 7: What is customer orientation? Answer: Running a business with the sole motive of serving one or more customers and satisfying them. This happens when there is a win-win situation between the organization and the buyer. Question # 8: Explain what is customer attrition. Answer: “If the product is good then customer will come back (again); If not, the product will come back (returned)” Every organization has to find out, at any given time how many customers have been lost rather than how may customers they are serving at that time. The losing of a higher number of customers indicates falling standards with regard to quality of services provided. Question # 9: According to Tom Peters, what are the reasons why the customers leave? Answer:

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15 percent because of quality problems -

15 percent because of higher price

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70 percent did not enjoy doing business with the organization

Question # 10: What are the contractual requirements of customers? Answer: Quality: service/product characteristics Time schedule for delivery Price Services such as responsibility for installation, service during warranty and post warranty, etc. Documentation support Training support Question # 11: What are the non-contractual requirements of customers? Answer: Quality (not documented before) Implied requirements Value for the money spent Environment of conducting business and the friendliness of the customer service personnel of the organization, etc. Question # 12: Enumerate the ways on delighting the customers. Answer: The organization should be familiar with general human nature and try to understand the hidden requirements of their customers. In a service organization, customers do not generally mind paying more, but they definitely mind how they are received, dealt with, and the quality of the product or service. The organization can give pleasant surprises to the customer by giving additional features or items Offering customers what they won’t have expected Question # 13:

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Explain D.H. Stamatis’ COMFORT. Answer: Caring – The customer service employees should not only be, but perceived to be very interested in finding out the real needs of the customers and help them to buy what they really intend to buy, product or service. Observant – Each customer service personnel should be a good observer. This will help them to understand the customer requirements better Mindful – The organization has to strive to meet the customer needs. Friendly – The customer service employees have to be friendly with the customers. They should give as much information as possible to the customers and greet them with a smile. Obliging – The organization should feel obliged that the customer has visited them with an enquiry. The customer contact employees should answer the customer queries as it may add to the marketing efforts of the organization Responsible – it is very important that the organization feels the responsibility of fulfilling the quality requirements, time schedule requirements, delivery requirements and service requirements as well as price requirements. Tactful – Tactful handling the customers will make the customers understand and cooperate in completing the jobs successfully. Question # 14: What is the KANO MODEL? Answer: The Kano model is a theory of product development and customer satisfaction developed in the 1980s by Professor Noriaki Kano. The Kano model offers some insight into the product attributes which are perceived to be important to customers. The purpose of the tool is to support product specification and discussion through better development of team understanding. Kano's model focuses on differentiating product features, as opposed to focusing initially on customer needs. Kano also produced a methodology for mapping consumer responses to questionnaires onto his model. Question # 15: Give three types of responses of a customer with regard to quality of a product or service. Answer: - basic quality - performance quality - excitement quality

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Question # 16: How can you measure fulfilling the basic quality? Answer: Fulfilling the basic quality is measured by the following: * customer complaints * warranty data * product recalls * number of lawsuits * things gone wrong * other failure reports Question # 17: Give atleast 3 Agreed Customer Requirements. Answer: 1. Invest Time For Understanding Customer Requirement 2. Find out the Right Requirements First In Service Industry it is difficult to described the end product in clear terms. 3. Reasons when doubts about requirements may not be able to clarify. 4. Checklist for eliminating Communication Gap. 5. Review The Contract/Requirements.\ 6. Foresee and Provide for Amendments 7. Documented Policy 8. Code of good Customer Handling Question # 18: What is Customer Perceive dQuality? Answer: Perceived quality can be defined as the customer's perception of the overall quality or superiority of a product or service with respect to its intended purpose, relative to alternatives. Perceived quality is, first, a perception by customers. Question # 19: Give the related concepts of perceived quality.

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Answer: Perceived quality is, first, a perception by customers. It thus differs from several related concepts, such as: a) Actual or objective quality: the extent to which the product or service delivers superior service b) Product-based quality: the nature and quantity of ingredients, features, or services included c) Manufacturing quality: conformance to specification, the "zero defect" goal Question # 20: Enumerate the six steps where the customer perception of quality is dependent. Answer: 1. Offer Prompt Attention 2. Have a helpful Patient Attitude 3. Listen and Acknowledge 4. Resolve Problems Rather than Placing Blame 5. Set Accurate Expectations 6.Show Appreciation Question # 21: What is customer feedback? Answer: Customer feedback is a marketing term that describes the process of obtaining a customer’s opinion about a business, product or service. Customer feedback is so important because it provides marketers and business owners with insight that they can use to improve their business, products and/or overall customer experience. Question # 22: Give some reasons why customer feedback is important to your business. 1. It can help improve a product or service 2. It offers the best way to measure customer satisfaction 3. It provides actionable insight to create a better customer experience 4. It can help improve customer retention 5. It delivers tangible data that can be used to make better business decisions 6. It can be used to identify customer advocates

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Question # 23: What is service recovery? Answer: Service recovery is an important and effective customer retention tool. One way an organization can ensure repeat business is by developing a strong customer service program that includes service recovery as an essential component. The concept of service recovery involves the service provider taking responsive action to “recover” lost or dissatisfied customers and convert them into satisfied customers. Service recovery has proven to be cost-effective in other service industries. Question # 24: Enumerate the six steps that organizations can use to influence effective service recovery. Answer: (1) encourage complaints as a quality improvement tool; (2) establish a team of representatives to handle complaints; (3) resolve customer problems quickly and effectively; (4) develop a complaint database; (5) commit to identifying failure points in the service system; and (6) track trends and use information to improve service processes. Question # 25: Give at least 5 tips for dealing with customer complaints. Answer: 1. Acknowledge Complaint 2. Don’t Take it Personal 3. Apologize 4. Maintain Positive Communication 5. Work Toward a Solution 6. Give the Customer Options 7. Document and Track Complaints 8. Trend Complaints 9. Don’t Overreact to Outliers 10. Service Recovery

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Chapter 6: Employee involvement Question and Answer Question # 26: Discuss about Theory X of Motivation Theory of Individual Employees. Answer: Sigmund Freud is the author of Theory X. The Theory X characterizes employees as: Avoid work, No ambition, No initiative, Do not take responsibility, Needs security to make the work, The management has to do the following: Reward, Coerce, Intimidate & Punish. Question # 27: Answer: Douglas McGregor is the author of Theory Y. McGregor’s Theory of people are: Want to learn, Work is natural activity, Have self-discipline & Develop themselves. These employees do not get motivated as much by any reward but they seek freedom to do difficult and challenging jobs. Question # 28: Discuss about Theory 2 of Motivation Theory of Individual Employee: Answer: Abraham Maslow beliefs that these 5 basic human needs to motivate the employee. Self-actualization needs – he believes that human being are always dissatisfied and they would like to achieve more and more. Safety needs – human beings wants to look for job security. Love needs – human being wants to belong to a reputed organization. Esteem needs – human being looks for recognition and appreciation. Physiological needs – human being wants to earn a living for himself and his family. Question # 29: Discuss something about Teamwork. Answer: Every organization may stark initially with one person of a few people, one of them being the entrepreneur or the promoter. Personnel are added in the organization to do more work. Each person has to contribute to the business output of the organization. Each person is recruited for a specific job. As the organization grows, a formal structure is evolved to enable better management & communication. Customer Satisfaction and Employee Involvement

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Question # 30: Do Rewards Disrupt Teamwork? Answer: It is believed by some that rewards and awards break teamwork. However, this is not quite true. On the contrary, rewards encourage people to practice teamwork. Awards should be given to motivate the team of people, who have contributed in a greater measure. Question # 31: Discuss about the necessity for communicating upwards/ seniors. Answer: The senior executives would have assigned specific tasks to their junior employees. In their busy schedule, they may or may not be able to check the progress in the task assigned. It is duty of the junior employee to inform the senior at periodic intervals about the progress of the special task in hand. Question # 32: Discuss about the necessity for communicating with juniors. Answer: Every employee should communicate with juniors. The junior employee will not have same education experience of expertise as that of senior. Therefore, the senior has to communicate with the junior patiently and in detail. Question # 33: Discuss about the necessity for communicating with peers. Answer: Communicating with peers is equally important. This has assumed significance since the organization has to establish customer-supplier to practice TQM. Adequate communicate is essential between customer and supplier. The supplier should be told about the requirements. Similarly, the suppliers should give information to the customer about the product or service delivered. Question # 34: Discuss Training Answer: Training should be a formal activity in every organization. Senior level executes in whatever designation they are addressed, should coordinate it. A bigger organization may need a separate department. At the beginning of every year, the HRD manager should evaluate the training needs of the employees across the organization. Question # 35:

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Discuss Mentoring. Answer: The training programs discussed so far are formal in nature. The employees are freed from normal work and are deputed for undergoing training. The employees have to be continuously coached on the job to understand the organization’s policies, objectives and goals. Question # 36: Why recognition of achievement important? Answer: In TQM environment, it is important to recognize achievement of employee, customers, suppliers. Every employee or supplier is to meet the requirements to satisfy his customers. However, there would be a few teams, and few suppliers which will excel in their contributions. Question # 37: Discuss about the Feedback and Performance Appraisal. Answer: Management and employee should look forward to getting a feedback on the action taken, the employee from the management and vice versa. Such feedback should be analyzed by the concerned individuals which would be a good input for the next decision to be taken. Question # 38: What is Performance Appraisal? Answer: Performance appraisal is to be used for the development of the employees. Usually in the beginning of the year, the supervisor discusses with the employee concerned and they jointly arrived at an action plan for the whole year, with a specific milestones for each quarter. The performance against various tasks is to be assessed. Question # 39: What is Empowerment? Answer: Empowerment and ownership are synonymous. Empowerment of employees is one of the best managements techniques deployed to result in continuous improvement in the organizations. Empowerment means involvement of all the employees for the improvement of the process. Question # 40: Explain the “Empowerment is not without bounds” Answer:

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Empowerment of employees is not without bounds or boundaries. It should be structured and planned to achieve the corporate goals in the TQM way. The employees are aligned with the business direction as brought out in the vision and mission statements of the CEO Question # 41: Why is Training is needed before the Empowerment? Answer: One of the fundamental requirements before embarking on forming self-managing teams is training of all employees in the team till they are perfect. Before empowering, management has to train the employees, ask them to carry on and check whether they are going in the right direction and if not, empower them Question # 42: Give 5 steps involved in Empowering? Answer: Agree on what they will produce or carry out Decide how to organize the team Decide on the responsibility within the team Decide on the flow work Audit the process Decide on improvements and restart Question # 43: Give at least 5 Fundamental Requirements of Management for Successful Empowerment? Answer: Accept that teamwork is more beneficial than hierarchical management Invest time and money on the team building and training before empowerment Be prepared to spend more time at the initial stages and later on to listen to the problems of the team members Prepare to wait patiently for the success of the empowered teams Prepare to equip the teams with facts and trust them Provide support and tools wherever required for the problem solving Reward a worthy teams

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