Seminar on Service Quality & QFD for Corporate Service Responsibility

The seminar on "Service Quality & QFD for Corporate Service Responsibility (CSR)" was hosted by Hong Kong Quality Fuction Deployment Association (HKQFDA) and co-organized by Spanish Association for Quality (AEC), SEEM Dept., CityU and Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) on 19^th April 2017. QFD is a product development methodology originated in Japan since 1960.  All speakers and supporting organizations representatives took a group photo for memory.

(Left: HKQFDA member, Prof. Sam Ho (Founder, HK5SA), Dr. Palmira Lopez-Fresno (AEC), Ms. Yolanda Chow (HKSQ), Ms. Gaylie SK So (Marketing, Exco, ISSC), Dr. Aaron Tong (HKSQ) and I (HKSQ & SEEM, CityU))

In the beginning, Dr. Catherine Chan (President, HKQFDA) gave an introduction of QFD.  QFD had been developed since 1960.  She quoted Karou Ishikawa that “Practice quality control is to develop, design, produce and service a quality product which is most economical, most useful, and always satisfactory to the consumer”.  So products should satisfy consumers’ needs.

Then She introduced a concept of consumer orientation that was changed from “Product-Out” concept to “Market-In” Concept.  

After that Catherine explained the interpretation of quality from narrowly to Bradly Interpretation.  She added many Japanese Enterprises use “Customer Satisfaction” as a Strategy to run their business.  

Catherine also mentioned the different between customer needs and wants.  We need to “Satisfy Needs, Not Wants”.  It was an expectation management otherwise a negative effect would come out.  

Customers’ needs included three parts that were Product, People and Environment. Catherine introduced different stakeholders and stated from “Product-Out” to “Market-In” through implementation of TQM and practicing QFD.  Focus on the principle of customer first and explained how QFD enhancing Innovation.

At the end, Dr. Catherine Chan discussed to make life better for the world as a whole through QFD to achieve minimizing the resource and maximizing the effects.  QFD was able to stimulating innovation and to become more competitive and also taking care of the stakeholders of the society for sustaining the Earth through product design & development.  

Dr. Palmira Lopez-Fresno (Vice President of AEC and President, Service Quality Committee of AEC) was the second speaker and her presentation topic was "Service Quality & Corporate Service Responsibility – Strategic Binomial for Today’s Business”.  She quoted Peter F. Drucker statement that “…what the customer buys and considers valuable is never just a product. …”  Then she added “Good Service Quality is not an option.  It is key to the success or failure of an organization.”

Dr. Palmira introduced recently notorious case – United Airlines beat their customers as example to show a company missing service quality.  She quoted Theodore Levitt (Management Expert in Germany) that “The mission of a company is to create and keep customers.  To get it, you need to do things that result in people wanting to do business with you.”  Therefore, reliability, loyalty, reputation and sustainability are long term values.

Then Dr. Palmira briefed the definition of perceived value that was Benefits plus Emotions and then over the price, inconvenience and uncertainty.  She also briefed different meaning of Service Quality.  “The achievement of positive impacts in the customers in each and every contact the organization has with them throughout time.” “Moments of Truth (Customer Experience)”. “Successful organizations are those continuously able to provided added value to their customers, in a cost-effective and sustained way.”  Then she mentioned company should be able to surprise customers (e.g. Apple).  

Dr. Palmira mentioned the two dimensions in service quality from organization and customer that one was objective / produced quality and the other was expected quality.  Customers satisfied only if through each contact the organization was able to exceed their “changeable” needs and expectations. (e.g. Kano model)  She added “It is not sustainable to take actions to “surprise” the customers, if the basic attributes and expected attributes are not guaranteed.” So that she interpreted corporate service quality that we cannot speak of excellence without assuring the quality of the processes in terms of quality management.

Service Quality is the result of comprehensive management of the tangible and intangible aspects it is made up from.  Those attributes to be considered:

-          Respect the customer’s time

-          Fulfill promises made

-          Personalize the service

-          Pay attention to detail

-          Always be respectful and friendly

-          Be accessible

-          React to mistakes

Back to the United Airline case, the following questions were arisen.

Can I trust you?

Are you committed with service quality?

Do I matter as a person?

Your personnel know and assume their functions and responsibilities?

Will you respect my time?

Are you accessible and approachable?

Is easy the relation with you?

Finally, she concluded that customer satisfaction and loyalty are related to the ability of an organization to meet/exceed customer needs and expectations in a consistent, sustainable and trusting way.  

Q&A Session.

We discussed how to surprise customer continuously.  Catherine proposed using storytelling to collect Voice of Customer (VoC).  Dr. Palmira asked us “what kind of your company want to be?” that affected the strategy you use. 

At the end, we took a group photo with all participants. 

Reference:

Hong Kong Quality Function Deployment Association (HKQFDA) - http://www.qfdhk.org/

Spanish Association for Quality (AEC) - http://www.aec.es/web/guest/aec/quienes-somos

Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) - http://www.hksq.org/

20120221: Seminar on QFD and Service Quality - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2012/02/seminar-on-qfd-and-service-quality.html