Some useful tips for enhancing customer satisfaction through TQM (Total Quality Management) principles and strategies. As majority of people are engaged in providing services, service quality is quite important for customer satisfaction. It is applicable to every organization irrespective of the nature of their business, whether engaged in manufacturing the products or providing services.
Customer abrasion
Some organisations may be able to attract new customers but may lose existing customers. If product of a particular company is good then customer will come back. If not, the product will come back.
How customers judge the product or service of any organization.
Quite often the number of new customers may be much more than the abrasion of customers. This may give misconception that the customers are happy and the organization is doing well. Therefore in order to get a correct number of customers every organization has to fine out, at any given time how many customers indicates that the company is not following standards with regard to quality of services provided. Customer abrasion may happen due to the following reasons:
Because of quality issues
Because of higher price of the product or service
Some customers may not wish to do business with organisations
This indicates the importance of maintaining good customer relationship with the customers. It is very difficult for a firm to attract customers and retains them forever.
Advanced Product Quality Planning process (APQP), Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Production Part Approval Process (PPAP)
Advanced Product Quality Planning process and Production Part Approval Process are tow methodologies that are part of the automotive supply chain and they serve to outline a common process and documentation procedure by the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG). Failure Mode and Effects Analysis is a technique followed to detect failure. All the above methodologies are specific to QS-9000 only.
Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP)
APQP is developed in the late 1980s by a commission of experts gathered from the big three US automobile manufactures:
Ford, GM and Chrysler.
It si a framework of procedures and techniques used to develop products in industry, particularly the automotive industry. It serves as a guide, a standard way to share results between suppliers and automotive companies.
According to the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG), the objective of APQP is "to produce a product quality plan which will support development of a product or service to satisfy customers".
APQP specify three phases: Development, Industrialisation and Product Launch. Through these phases some main topics will be monitored. These main topics will be all completed before the production is started.
The APQP process has seven major elements:
Understanding the customer needs
Proactive feedback and corrective action
Designing within the process capabilities
Analyzing and decreasing failure modes
Verification and validation
Design reviews
Control special/critical characteristics
In Advance Innovation Group, we provide extensive training and consulting of ISO 9001: 2008 (Quality Management System) and ISO 27001: 2013 (Information Security Management System – ISMS) across India.
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