How do you benchmark and improve your service quality performance using QFD and TQM?

1 What is QFD?

QFD is a method of translating customer needs and preferences into technical specifications and quality standards for your service. QFD helps you prioritize the most important service attributes and features that deliver value to your customers. QFD uses a matrix called the House of Quality (HoQ) to capture the relationships between customer requirements, service characteristics, competitive benchmarks, and improvement targets.

2 What is TQM?

TQM is a philosophy and a set of practices that aim to achieve continuous improvement of quality in all aspects of your service delivery. TQM involves the participation and commitment of all stakeholders, including management, employees, suppliers, and customers. TQM focuses on customer satisfaction, process improvement, employee empowerment, teamwork, and data-driven decision making.

3 How to use QFD and TQM together?

QFD and TQM can work together to create a systematic and customer-oriented approach to service quality improvement. To use these methods, start by identifying and segmenting customers and their needs through surveys, interviews, focus groups, or other methods. Then, construct the HoQ matrix based on customer needs and service characteristics with the help of tools and techniques such as affinity diagrams, brainstorming, or Pareto analysis. Next, compare your service performance with competitors and set improvement targets using benchmarking, gap analysis, or other methods. After that, use TQM tools such as PDCA cycle, 5S, Kaizen, or Six Sigma to implement improvement actions based on the HoQ matrix. Finally, evaluate the results and feedback of the improvement actions with customer satisfaction surveys, service quality audits, or other methods. Use this feedback to revise and update the HoQ matrix and improvement targets.

4 What are the benefits of using QFD and TQM?

QFD and TQM can help you achieve a variety of benefits for your service quality performance, such as aligning your service design with customer needs and expectations, enhancing your competitive advantage, reducing costs and eliminating non-value-added activities, increasing customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention, and improving employee engagement. Moreover, these methods can also motivate employees and increase their productivity by involving them in the quality improvement process.

5 What are the challenges of using QFD and TQM?

QFD and TQM can offer many advantages for your service quality performance, however, there are some challenges that need to be addressed. These include obtaining accurate customer data and feedback, communicating and coordinating effectively across different functions and departments, managing the complexity and time required to construct and update the HoQ matrix, balancing the trade-offs and conflicts between different service attributes and features, and sustaining the commitment and culture of quality improvement among all stakeholders.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?