Adding Value for Customers

All quality gurus have argued that quality must be appraised by customer perspectives. For example, Juran (1974) and Crosby (1979) defined quality as ‗fitness for use‘ and ‗conformance to requirements‘ respectively. Ishikawa (1985) considers that achieving quality is associated by recognising the customer‘s requirements and meeting these requirements. However, Deming (1986) goes beyond meeting requirements to delighting the customer. Similarly, others (Dean and Evans, 1994; Bergman and Klefsjo, 1994; Oakland, 2003) focus on meeting or exceeding the customer expectation. In this context, customer focus and customer satisfaction are the primary goals for any organisational quality initiative.

Sureshchandar et al. (2001) identified that customer expectations of service are highly dynamic and complex. Currently, the achievement of customer delight is not evident to the extent it could be and it is the responsibility of management to assure this. However, Schineider and Bowen (1995) consider customer satisfaction as a short-term conception that cannot create a long-term commitment.

Kanji (2001) has suggested that what does ‗Delight the Customer‘ is determined by the extent to which an organisation:

 listens to its customers

 determines current and future customer requirements and expectations  uses feedback from customers to improve its products and services

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Delighting the Customer is translated into practice by two core concepts: External Customer Satisfaction and Internal Customer Satisfaction.

According to Kanji (2001), external customer satisfaction shows the extent to which the organisation:

- uses methods for determining and monitoring external customers‘ perceived quality and value

- uses customer feedback to improve product/service quality

- handles complaints, resolves them, and uses complaint information for quality improvement and prevention of recurrence of problems

- measures performance against customer targets

- compares its customer satisfaction results with those of main competitors

Chapman et al. (1997) focused on interdependence levels between internal and external customers as the means of creating best quality for external customers. Furthermore, Conduit and Mavondo (2001) indicate that positive associations exist among internal service quality, employee satisfaction, and customer retention.

The achievement of customer satisfaction is the key for building strong and close relationships with customers. Parasuraman et al. (1991) stressed that in the banking sector, the relationship between the buyer and seller is invaluable, creating dimensions of power, co- operation, commitment and trust much higher than in the consumer goods market. Hence, the seller in the banking sector could benefit more from knowing about his/her buyer‘s habits, behaviour and visions, and then providing the best bank service in the market and meeting the particular demand of products.

The Baldrige Model Award (2010) highlights the importance of building a customer focus culture by listening to customers and developing opportunities for innovation in the organisation. However, the EFQM Excellence Model (2010) has addressed the significance of identifying customers‘ perceptions of the organisation. Such perceptions may be obtained from various sources, including customer surveys, focus groups, vendor ratings, compliments and complaints.

Zairi (2000) mentions that being customer-focused requires having a clear service strategy which is deployed with vision, purpose, goals, and targets. It also entails creating a dialogue with customers by asking questions about service quality standards, satisfaction levels, future intentions, complaints, etc. According to Zairi (2000), the key requirements in the development of a customer-focused culture are:

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 To learn who the customer is and to use a wide variety of means to gather information on all customers.

 To learn about market dynamics, competition, threats and opportunities amongst other things.

 To know what is required, what pressures are on the organisation and what will help in deciding how to create a customer focus.

Clearly, a consideration of customer perspectives and expectations is essential to create a customer-focused organisational culture as noted by several researchers (e.g. Oakland, 1989; Cullen and Hollingum, 1987), who concentrated on determining the exact requirements of customers and how to measure the quality of what is produced in this respect. Stebbing (1993) also stressed that organisations should know precisely what their customers need, describing services as acts and interactions. In these interactions, organisations must harmonise customer expectations and management perceptions by asking customers directly (about their quality perceptions, satisfactions, values etc.) through surveys, focus groups and so on.

Similarly, Parasuraman et al. (1985) also demonstrated the necessity of developing a system for gathering information about customer expectations. This should involve continually listening to customers to update intelligence, prioritising the expectations according to the importance to the customer, and ensuring that company resources and the company‘s ability to deliver the expected service are as they should be.

Clearly, customer feedback is the best way to measure customer satisfaction and the standard of quality at the organisation. Crosby (1984) deemed customer feedback on product as vital, and Besterfield (1986) listed the objectives of such feedback as to:

• discover customer dissatisfaction;

• discover relative priorities of quality in terms of other attributes like price and delivery; • compare performance with the competition;

• identify customer needs;

• determine opportunities for improvement

Brige and Latvia (2006) consider customer complaints as an indicator to measure customer dissatisfaction, but as noted by Kehoe (1996), dissatisfied customers rarely complain, so this is questionable. Nonetheless, Deming (1982a, cited in Walton, 1985) that organisations should accept customers‘ negative feedback, but that most do not actually deal with such

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criticism constructively. Hand (1992) stressed that complaints should be seen in positive light and used as an opportunity to improve customer relations. Similarly, Zing et al. (2000) assert that in order to improve customer satisfaction, customer complaints should be accorded top priority, and warranties should be provided. Methods that can be used for establishing customer satisfaction include collecting customer complaint information, and performing market investigations and customer satisfaction surveys.