National Workshop On 'Total Quality Management And Organizatonal Performance

ABSTRACT

Developing a customer ftlcus is an absolute necessity for any organization that wants to be successful, be it a ·Federal, Stale or Local government, company X or one of the many federal departments or agencies. The importance of recognizing customers' desires, needs, and expectations in planning for the future cannot be overemphasized. Each of the best-inclass partners has recognized this and ha~ taken active, even aggressive, steps to make sure that the customers are heard111• The belief that long term strategic advantage via 'marketing orientation' comes principally from custom traits: listening, common courtesy, slavish devotion to adding value to and differentiating the· most mundane of commodities and superior service. These traits are simply not 'technique driven' neither are they 'marketing'. They arc about customers. Therefore, customer orientation should be preferred to market orientation since markets do not buy goods but customers dol21. Customer satisfaction is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. It is seen as a key performance indicator within business and is part of the four perspectives of a balanced scorecard. In a competitive marketplace where businesses compete for customers, customer satisfaction is seen as a key differentiator and increasingly has become a key clement of business strategy.11 1 There is a substantial body of empirical literature that establishes the bene tits of customer satisfaction for firms. For the purposes of this study, a "customer- driven organization" is defined as one that "maintains a focus on the needs and exrJechltions, both spoken and unspoken, of customers, both present and future, in the creation and/or improvement of the product or service provided." At the same time, being customer-driven does not mean blindly taking action based upon the results of customer input; it does mean, however, taking into consideration the needs and expectations of customers, both present and future. It means looking at what customers do - not just what the~ say - in determining their needs. In a practical sense, companies often cannot actually ask the customers what. woulcJ..satis(y their· needs because the customers muy not know what their needs really arc. or because the customers to be satistied do not yet exist. This paper shall therefore seek to establish the means, ways, and tools needed to build a customer driven organization. Total quality Mananagemcnt techniques shall be examined to see how this technique can be .used to build a customer driven organization.