Управление качеством в международных корпорациях. Практикум на английском языке

Practical training

instance Fornell et.al. (1996) investigate the impact of value and perceived quality on overall satisfaction in seven major economic sectors in the US (including the financial sector).are Both value (price) and perceived service quality have a positive effect on overall customer satisfaction.

Corporate image

Image has been described as subjective knowledge (Boulding 1956) as an attitude and as a combination of product characteristics that are different from the physical product (Erickson et.al.1984). Image was critical to service firms and to a great extent determined by customer’s assessment of the service they receive .The author conceptualized. That Perceived service quality from three perspectives that includes image (Gronroos, 1984).

Bloemer, Ruyter and Peters (1998) find the image has clear positive influence on service quality perception. Similarly Miheliset.al (2001) measures image by credibility (name repetition technological excellence and the ability to satisfy future customer’s needs.

Customer satisfaction → Corporate image → Service quality → Perceived value → Network quality → Outcome quality → Interaction quality → Physical environment

Figure 4-multi level of customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction index model

PriortoSymanskiandHanard(2001),fewstudieshadinvestigated the outcome of customer satisfaction. Understanding the outcome of customer satisfaction including customer loyalty (Bei and Chiao, 2001) and the intention to continue to do business with a particular provider remain relatively unexpected even though they are of central importance to marketers (Burnham et.al.2005).

The Swedish satisfaction barometer model established in 1989 was the first national customer satisfaction index model pertaining to purchase and consumed product and service (Fornell,1992). The concept defined the natural customer satisfaction index model requires a methodology with two properties (Fornell1992).

Firstthemethodologymustrecognizethatthecustomersatisfaction index and other model represent different type of evaluation that cannot be measure directly. To this end those customer should be seen as latent variables and these scored or index should be general enough to be comparable across firm industry sector and national.

Second Customer satisfaction must be measured in a way that not only account for consumption experience .But also is for word

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looking. Accordingly the customer satisfaction index is embedded in a system of cased and effect relationships.

Due to the success of the SCSB more and more nation and area has modified this model to construct different types of natural customer satisfaction index model. Some of the national indexes are the following.

American customer satisfaction index (ACSI), depend in mid1990s, for insurance, has provided a basic from work for many other index model created else ware in the world however the related study have been mostly focused on measuring customer satisfaction indices for in five industry sectors and the ranking produced have been used for the purpose of advertising the concerned sectors and marketing. Few of the previous study in this field explored perceived quality factor that have an actual impact on customer satisfaction or sought to develop strategies for quality improvement. The higher customer expectation, leads to the higher the perceived quality; and the higher customer satisfaction likewise.

The European customer satisfaction index (ECS1) Model use six constructs namely, image, customer expectation, perceived value, Customersatisfactionandloyalty.Thesesixfactorsarealsoconnected through a causal relationship Image has a determinant influence on customer expectation and customer intern affect perceived quality of hard work or soft work. The European model eliminates the category of «customer complains» present in the original Acsi model. ECSI model proposed the following study on postal service. It consists of seven factors namely; image, hardware quality, customer service, quality of human ware, perceived value customer satisfaction and customer complain.

The Swiss index of customer satisfaction [SWICS] measure; three factors customer satisfaction, customer dialogs and customer loyalty (Burniham at.al 2003). All the three factors exist in a causal relationship in which customer loyalty and customer dialog affected customer loyalty.

Most nation customer satisfaction index models such as SCSB and ACSI Models show that increase customer satisfaction both increased customer loyalty as well as decreased customer compliant (Fornell and Wernarlet, 1998). When dissatisfied customer has the optionofgoingtocompetitor,orvoicingcompliantfacilitatedecreasing retention, furthermore an increase. In the number of complaints alleviate decrease loyalty.

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Measuring Customer Satisfaction

Measuring customer satisfaction is about profit and competitive advantage to achieve long term success in market, firm should monitor the customer satisfaction signals regarding product, service and relationship. Measuring customer satisfaction provide a comprehensive insight to the customer per and post purchase behavior.

Increasing customer satisfaction is beneficial to marketing manager,how to measure it is clear. Customer satisfaction has been studied from the perspective of the individual customer and, also what drives their satisfaction (Oliver and Swan, 1998). As well as form an industrial wide perspective to compare customer satisfaction score across firms and industry (Fornell, 1992).

Sweden is the first country to have reconciled cross-company and cross industry national evaluation document for customer satisfaction and assessment of quality product and service in 1998. The Swedish customer satisfaction barometer (SCSB) as it is called was adapted for use in the American customer satisfaction index (ASCI) (Anderson and Fornell, 2000).The productive experience of the Swedish customer satisfaction barometer (SCSB)and American customer satisfaction index (ACSI) gave birth to the European satisfaction index (SCSI) (Juhletall, 2002).

Customer satisfaction has been analyzed in the marketing literature as the difference between perceived performance of a product service and some cognitive standard such as expectation and desired of customer (Oliver, 1980).

The most widely accepted conceptualization of the customer satisfaction is the expectancy disconfirmation theory (MC quality, firm, 2000).This theory was developed by Oliver, who proposed that satisfaction level is a result of the difference between expected and perceived Performance. Satisfaction (positive disconfirmation) occurs when product or service is better than expected. Product or service less than expectation of customer result dissatisfaction (Negative disconfirmation). The study shows that customer satisfaction may have direct or indirect impact on business result.

The three broad category of measuring customer satisfaction scales are performance scale, disconfirmation scale, and satisfaction scales. Performance scale are those that use scale such as poor, fair, good, excellent, disconfirmation scale are these that use scale such as very dissatisfied to very satisfied.

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The researcher will use both satisfaction scale and five point of disconfirmation scale to assess customer satisfaction.

Performance (1988) identified five dimension of service quality (SERVQUAL) helps to identify clearly the impact of quality dimension on the development of customer perception and resulting customer satisfaction .SERVQUAL includes:

reliability: the willingness to help customer and provide prompt service

Assurance: the knowledge and courtesy of employee as well as their ability to convey trust and confidence.

Empathy: the provision of caring, individualized attention to customer and

Tangibility: the appearance of physical facility equipment personal and communication materials

Even if SERVQUAL has so many criticize, Carillat .et al (2007) as cited in Zaramdini and Rankan (2009) investigated the validity of SERVQUAL using 17 studies that applied servqual and come up with the conclusion that it is adequate and valid tool to measure service quality and customer satisfaction ,and still the most widely used measurement instrument.

AccordingtoLongandMcMellon(2004)theSERVQUALscalecan be adjusted depending on the industry to study to suit any particular study. Therefore in this study customer satisfaction of Ethiopian Insurance Corporation will be assessed by using SERVQUALmethod and adjusted according to insurance industry.

Tangibility, Reliability, Customer, Satisfaction, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy – customer satisfaction model.

Case: Swiss Post has predominantly satisfied customers

This year’s surveys of around 37,000 of Swiss Post’s business and private customers indicate a stable result. At 80 out of a possible 100 points, the group-wide customer satisfaction index confirms an equaling of last year’s record and shows that customers are predominantly satisfied with Swiss Post’s services.Aparticularly good score of 86 points was once again accorded by private customers to the Post Offices & Sales group unit. Swiss Post’s delivery quality also received a very positive score of 91 points as part of a separate survey.

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Around 14,000 private customers and 10,000 business customers evaluated Swiss Post’s services as part of this year’s customer satisfaction survey. The group-wide customer satisfaction index, with 80 out of a possible 100 points once again, shows that continual improvements in the products and services are well received by customers. A score above 80 points signifies a very high level of satisfaction. Customers particularly appreciate the quality of services and personal advice.

A high degree of satisfaction among private and business customers

Private customers rated individual group units very highly, as they did last year. The highest number of points (86) was again achieved by the Post Offices & Sales unit. However, Post Bus also gained points from commuters (76 points) and leisure passengers (84 points) this time round.

BusinesscustomersmakeupanimportantsegmentforSwissPost as they account for the largest part of Group turnover. They continued to assign high scores of between 77 and 82 to individual sub–units. Swiss Post Solutions (with 82 points) and Post Mail’s national letter mail (with 79 points) received slightly better ratings from business customers than they did last year. Business customers’ perception of the range of products and services offered by Post Mail International (77 points), Post Finance (82 points) and Post Logistics (77 points) remained at high levels, although slightly lower than last year.

High praise for delivery staff

The delivery staff also received high praise again this year. Swiss Post’s delivery quality received a very good 91 points in a separate survey of around 12,800 private recipient customers throughout Switzerland. This is the eighth time in a row that the score achieved is higher than 90 points. Customers are particularly satisfied with the professional conduct and appearance of delivery staff, and their friendliness received the top mark of 95 points.

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* Because of changes to the questionnaires, the figures cannot be directly compared directly with those of last year.

Tasks

1.Characterize factors which influence satisfaction of clients

2.What indexes of satisfaction of clients in the world exist? Explain your point of view.

3.Carry out analysis of this index.

Questions

1.What is satisfaction of the consumer?

2.What are attributes of client’s satisfaction?

3.How satisfaction of the client influences profitability?

References

1.Auh S., Salisbury L. C. and Johnson M. D., 2013. Order Effects in Customer Satisfaction Modelling. Journal of Marketing Management, 19, 379–400.

2.Bruhn M. and Grund M. A., 2012. Theory, development and implementation of national customer satisfaction indices: the Swiss Index of Customer Satisfaction (SWICS). Total Quality Management, 11 (7), 1017–1028.

3.Horppu M., Kuivalainen O., Tarkiainen A. and Ellonen H., 2014. Online satisfaction, trust and loyalty, and the impact of the offline parent

brand. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 17 (6), 403–413.

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4. Krostensen K., MartensenA. and Gronholdt L., 2014. Customer satisfaction measurement at Post Denmark: Results of application of the European Customer Satisfaction Index Methodology. Total Quality Management, 11 (7), 1007–1015.

11. EXPERIENCE OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT

IN GERMANY

The purpose of this practice – to discuss and fix bases of quality management, its main principles in Germany.

This practice will allow creating competences PK-3: possession of skills of the strategic analysis, development and implementation of strategy of the organization aimed at providing competitiveness; and PK-5: ability to analyze interrelations between functional strategy of the companies for the purpose of preparation of the balanced administrative decisions and also to acquire the following knowledge and abilities:

–knowledge of quality management bases in Germany;

–understandingofanorderofitsimplementationinthecompanies’ activity;

–ability to define, what elements quality management in Germany consist in and how to use them to develop the company and economy.

Relevance of practice consists in necessity to know German experience of quality management.

Theoretical part

The uptake of TQM in Europe was generally slow and backward withregardtothemostimportantindustrialnationsexceptinGermany where it gained considerable interest from the middle of the 1980’s until the early 1990’s. But the enthusiasm never reached the level like in Asia or the U.S. One reason is the fact that it had always been difficult to adopt management concepts from another part of the world and even the American way of TQM turned out to be difficult to establish in German industry.

In Europe unions have played an important role for economy. The poweroftradeunionsandworkscommitteesinGermanyconcentrates in big enterprises and is small or even negligible in enterprises beyond 20 employees. In Germany the basic principle concerning

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change concepts for the unions and most of the consultants is Social partnership which means «high trust relationships between employees and employers:Any change concept as solely a top down approach is not an appropriate concept for Germany» is a general statement of unions or works committees.

The unions/works committees are willing to co-operate. There is no principle resistance to change. The unions/works committees are accepting the necessity of change to survive in the age of global competition and rapid technical change. The reason for that is mainly because they fear a decline of their influence. The worst thing for them would be a situation where employees and management would regulate the change processes themselves. Concepts like TQM, Group work or Six Sigma are offering employees more chances for co–determination. Change processes in big German enterprises also have a legal aspect: works committees are automatically actors in change processes by a law, called «Betriebsverfassungsgesetz» which give them certain rights in the case that «important changes are likely to be induced».

There are examples that even in cases of severe rationalization ways have been found to avoid big dismissals. One important experience was the introduction of the four-days-week at Volkswagen in 1993. Working time was reduced to about 28,5 hours a week, the possibility to retire before the 65th year of live without losing a lot of the pension has been made easier. Recently another initiative at Volkswagen,the5000x5000initiative(5000jobs5000GermanMarks fixedmonthlypayment)wasintensivelydiscussed.Themainobjective of this initiative is to make operational work-force more flexible and evencreatenewjobs.Althoughworkscommissionandtheemployees of Volkswagen plead for the new flexible work concept the initiative failed on its first attempt. The flexible regulations are questioning the established «Tariff System» in Germany. At the moment, however, chances are rising that this initiative will be realized. This example is very important because Germany is suffering from the enormous burden of financing unemployment. This initiative could be a signal for both economy and politics.

It was in the late 1980’s that two significant incidents occurred concerningtheTQMapproachinGermany.TheEuropeanFoundation of Quality Management had been founded in Brussels in 1988 and the ISO 9000 series that has taken effect a year before.

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The ISO 9001:1987 as the most important representative of the ISO 9000 series was issued to set a basis for quality management on a common level. Recently revised for the second time its former 20 element structure was abandoned in favor of a new pattern based on processes. Customer requirements shall be transformed in customer satisfaction by a management system.

Not only the structure of the standard but also basic principles have changed. The most important are:

–Process orientation for quality management systems is recommended;

–Continuous improvement of products, processes and the quality management system shall be the main objective of the top management;

–The management shall control regularly main process outputs;

–Requirements for management system documentation have been strongly relaxed.

Table 11.1

Management approaches and implementation in Germany

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Lean Production / Lean Manufacturing / Lean Management were the predominating rationalization concept in Germany in the beginning of the 1990’s. Although these terms mean the same approach, there was a significant difference in Germany. LP/ LM were perceived as a pure rationalization program in medium sized and big enterprises. It was a response to Japan’s success story or even more narrow: Toyota. The Lean Management concept, however, not only was important to big enterprises but also to the Public Sector. There is a substantial public discussion still going on about the lack of efficiency in the Public Administration, public pension system and the Health Care System. The German reunification sharpened the financial burden and made a “lean concept” for this sector even more attractive. Ever since then the word lean is well known in Germany.

Just in Time was a concept to be adopted in Germany in the beginning of the 1980’s. This concept could not be implemented the Japanese way because the preconditions were completely different. As a desired effect it should reduce the periods for transportation by bringing suppliers and assemblers close together. In Germany it resulted in a shift of most of the stocks on the streets.

Case: TQM at Karcher Group

As one of the first in this sector, Alfred Kärcher GmbH & Co. KG introduced a quality management system in compliance with ISO 9001 and was certified to it. After the founding of Future tech the new company was likewise audited and certified. They thus commit us to continuously improving our quality management system and the Kärcher production system has set up the right preconditions for this. Uniform Kärcher standards and norms help in the improvement of processes and the more efficient structuring of our work flows. Minimisingcostsandrisksandmeetingdeadlinesare,injustthesame way as improving quality, central constituent parts of our management system. The basis for work is the integrated management manual. There all the core processes are written down together with the corresponding work instructions and guidelines.

Quality Policy

Simpleanduncomplicatedoperation,thebestmaterialsprocessed to the highest levels of quality: These are the requirements that we place on our products.

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