Enhancing Customer Satisfaction with the Implementation of Total Quality Management

Mehra and Ranganathan (2008) reported that in 1979, Crosby gave 14 stairs for character reference improvement his usage was reenforcemented by the work of some early(a) investigator, Ishikawa who verbalize that readying, problem solving, and timberland circles atomic number 18 very crucial ship canal of achieving continuous improvement. The seekers as well as spoke ab surface the work of Deming with his contribution of bad 14principles that has become the baseation of TQM and acknowledged Juran for directing the three basic functions of a timberland focusing process which argon supplying, placement, and control.To Juran these functions of bore trouble process are different directs in any programs for prime(a) improvement. TQM and guest orientation It has been break that only those ancestry organizations that pay attention to the desire of their guests and make efforts to gratify those bespeaks become successful. Naturally, guests have their perceived expectations of quality of carrefours or assistance they want from patronagees they patronize and when they get satisfied they stay, else they leave for somewhere else.This is traceable to why guest atonement receives much attention and emphasis in the field of commercialiseing. Researchers studied the profit of 472 restaurants and their provides showed that data collected to the highest degree customer blessedness rate at a cartridge holder has a directly impact on the profit margin of an organization nine months thenceforth and concluded that quality as perceived by customer is what determines submit on investment of any come with( Mehra and Ranganathan 2008). It is thitherfore very classical for organizations to center on customer pleasure so as to build a long lasting consanguinity with them.Customer propitiation was not disposed(p) much emphasis in the past but these days with longing competition in the global market, Organizations have come to realize i ts importance to as to maintain their stance in the market. Now, they know well that customer gratification leave alone lapse to customer retention and profits improvements. Scholars declared opined that the chances of customer leaving an organization overdue to poor products or work quality would definitely be reduced when customer merriment is obtaind by a follow ( Mehra and Ranganathan 2008). Agus et al. 2000) established that a successful implementation of TQM by a company will rear its customer joy and lead to financial proceeding.Goldman (2005), stated for an organization to remain competitive , it must identify its customers needs and fix a way of building them into the products and services designs and ripening. nigh researchers share the believe that in order for a company to quit its customer, their needs must be identified and incorporated into the design and development of appropriate product or service ( Spring et al. 998). Chan et al. (2001) report that quality function deployment is one appropriate TQM techniques that is a customer oriented plan of attack and translates the voices of customers into the design features of products and services. This technique has three objectives which are to identify the customer, what he wants and find ways of fulfilling those wants. Researchers stresses that QFD methodology works by relating customer requirements with the design features (Govers 2001)Researchers accentuate a company need of its customer consignment, stressed that a company would retain its customers if only a higher level of service than those of its competitors is achieved (Alomaim, 2003). The mensuration of quality is dependent on meeting the expectations and requirements of customer the first time and at every other time. The federal Quality Institute (FQI) states that TQM is a comprehensive, customer-focused system that many organizations are adopting to improve the quality of their products and services (Alomaim et al. 2003). Alomaim et al. 2003) stated that TQM is management at all levels in an organization with the objective of customer gratification. They went further to state the largest per centumage of scores for this award. TQM in Services. Mehra and Ranganathan (2008) established that TQM has a simple application in the industry of health care to parent customer satisfaction after they reviewed the work of Ingram and Chung (1997) who reported that successful acceptation of TQM programs has led to maximally satisfied customers. Hasin et al. (2001) affirmed that hospitals have engaged TQM principles as a weapon to gain competitive advantage.Researcher conducted a bailiwick to investigate success factors that are critical to TQM programs among corporations in US by surveying bookss (Dayton 2003). This effort led to his discovery of ten TQM success factors that are critical which includes orientation of customer satisfaction , quality improvement measurement, planning operational quality , customer and people management, management of external interface, improvement instruction communication, structures that facilitate team work, strategic partnership with suppliers and organizational farming of quality.The cue stick for these factors was taken from Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. According to the results of the findings, it was revealed that quality management and organizational culture of quality as TQM most important success factors as it relate to organizational motion. These research efforts found advocate in the work of Sit et al. (2009) that highlighted six core TQM practices that is acceptable by award models for quality like European Excellence Model and Quality Award and MBNQA by means of reviewing of literatures on TQM practices.These six TQM core practices are human resources focus, strategic planning, randomness epitome, customer focus, leadership and process management. TQM in Manufacturing. Scholars studied the Australia manufacturin g industries to examine the impacts of TQM programs on their operational performance and reported that application of TQM in an organization helps to achieve success in relationships among employee, customer satisfaction and performance in business ( Terziovski and Samson 1999).To support this view another researcher reported that Malaysian manufacturing industries enhance their financial performance by gentle TQM programs and traced this performance to their consummation of customer satisfaction (Agus et al. , 2000). It should be acknowledged that when organizations successfully implement TQM, the result is that high level of customer satisfaction and improved financial performance would be achieved. This stated fact finds supports from literatures on TQM and customer satisfaction. Mehra et al. (2001) strongly mphasized that customer focus play an important role towards implementing TQM and established that TQM is customer oriented. They also affirmed that customer satisfaction a nd customer loyalty are important elements for organizations that possess the value of customer focus. Attempting to further stress the necessity of engaging TQM to improve customer focus, suggested that organizations must pay serious attention to customer satisfaction.Researchers established that literatures abounds that mention customer focus and suggested that definition of TQM in the coming(prenominal) should give customer focus its rightful place (Mehra et al. 001). Chien et al. (2002) state categorically that a strong relationship exists among the customer satisfaction level a company can achieve and its commitment to TQM practices which determines its performance. Other researcher believed that there is need for further research that presents the TQM relationship with customer relations ( Kaynak 2003). The impacts of the practices of TQM on customer satisfaction have been examined by many researchers and its wide applications in manufacturing and service industries alike ha ve been reported.TQM and cultural differences. Researcher contend that cultural differences among industry types and across nations will vary the applicability of quality programs ( Dawson 1995). In the author opinion, TQM has a strong inclination in the culture of Japanese which makes its adoption not applicable universally. He therefore suggests that businesses and nations that will adopt TQM should conduct studies on examining how it could be adapted to their cultures.This view finds support in the work of other researchers who express their believe that TQM is neither effectual nor fit for business environment that involves multiple cultures. Some other scholars interrogative that TQM is effective in service industries because of the uniqueness of this industry in that their product is not visible. These concerns made Mehra and Ranganatha ( 2008) to undertake a take aim in the literature of TQM and customer satisfaction. Based on the results of their findings, they affirmed that implementation of TQM programs in an organization improves customer satisfaction.They rejected the argument that the only culture where TQM programs will result is collectivistic and also established that TQM programs will succeed in both collectivistic and individualistic cultures and across business types and national cultures. The result of their research made them to redefine TQM as a management strategy that, with heavy(a) design and successful implementation can be adopted to enhance customer satisfaction through a concerted focus on customer and that this strategy is equally applicable to both service and manufacturing businesses operating(a) in varied global cultures.For managers with kin interest on successfully adopting TQM implementation, they suggested 3 action plans develop unique skills for identifying customers needs in their workforce, train their employees to understand global market competitions and global customer, and train specific military force on ways of determining the customer satisfaction level at sensitive and throughout the contact points that are major. Mehra et al. 2001) and kaynak (2003) stressed that there is need for research that examines the impact of TQM programs on performance of an organization. Researchers are of the opinion that there is need for studies that will investigate the relationship between organization performance and TQM practices. This view finds support from Yasin et al. (2004) who expressed their concern for the rare nature take in reports that relates performance of an organization to its improvements efforts on quality.TQM and Human resources. Researcher examines in an confirmable study the role of human resource management practices towards implementing TQM within the innovational technology companies and the results of their findings was that the practices of HRM impacts significantly on customer satisfaction (Yang 2006). Many business organizations have place strong emphasis on customer sa tisfaction as they believe it would help them to increase productivity and ultimately profitability.Yang (2006) walld that company must put structures in place for customer satisfaction management and that company need employees to maintain such structures. Other researchers carry out an investigation on the relationship between the role of HRM and client satisfaction in the health industry (Ott and van Dijk 2005). Their study explored activities of HRM such as employee involvement, transparent management, plan for personal development, on the job training, supportive management style. They found that the manager management style nfluences the employee satisfaction. When Sit et al. (2009) reviewed the work of Adsit et al. (1996) that examines the railroad tie that exist between customer satisfaction, employee spatial relation and performance evaluation.They reported that employee billet have a significant positive impact on customer satisfaction which made them to conclude that human resource focus bring forth customer satisfaction. It is rather unfortunate that literatures of studies on the relationships between customer satisfaction and Organizations pot are rare. Kantabutra and Avery, 2007) affirmed that what is found is a casual link of customer and employee satisfaction with the organizational vision. To this effect, these researchers embarked on an empirical study to investigate how organizations vision affect customer and employee satisfaction in retails stores in Thai. The research findings revealed that organizations vision, employee satisfaction, communication, motive and empowerment enhanced customer satisfaction.Based on the findings of their result, It was established that vision significantly enhances customer satisfaction. Sit et al. (2009) carried out a research study to examine the relationships customer satisfaction and TQM practices based on the perception of managers in the service organizations that are TQM certified in Malaysia. Th ey reported that TQM enhances customer satisfaction and went ahead to establish customer focus, human resources, leadership and information and analysis as critical success factor of TQM practices and that they induce customer satisfaction.It was revealed in their findings that human resources and information and analysis were TQM dominant practices because they have close relationship with Customer focus within the service organizations under projectation. Customer satisfaction and customer loyalty (Bennette and Rundle-Thiele 2004) conducted an empirical study to examine the relationship between customer satisfaction and attitudinal loyalty of customers. The researchers work took premise from the previous literatures on the field of battle. They reported that out That four biggest bank in Australia ecorded customers dissatisfaction percentage of about 23-32 percent and they are among the nations six top companies that is normal. It was impress that their performance was not aff ected as they posted large profits. They found that customers still patronized these banks even though they were dissatisfied which made them to argue that customer loyalty and organization performance does not depend all on the single factor of customer satisfaction even though this go against the popular opinion that abound in the literatures that satisfaction is what leads to the attitude of loyalty often scupper by customers.They established that these customers were simply loyal. temporary hookup public relations make every effort to convince the public that customer satisfaction is necessary for customer retention, these researchers discovered from the literatures that in 2003, the deposit of America earnings reports that customer satisfaction level of 14 percent constitutes 5. 3 percent of its customers. The question then remains, what is the satisfaction level experience by other 94. perfect? This further proved that customer satisfaction does not necessarily leads to c ustomer loyalty. Customer satisfaction has become a factor that is of high significance to business organizations and marketers alike especially in the service industries. Organizations because of so much emphasis that is place on this subject often see it as the ultimate in order to produce the stiff competition in the global business environment.It is believed that customer satisfaction will help companies to retain their customers so as to maintain their market share and ultimately achieve organizational performance. The researchers surveyed a sample of 267 businesses and investigated their satisfaction level and attitude of loyalty to the services of an advertising company(Bennette and Rundle-Thiele 2004). The result of their findings revealed that loyalty that is of high level do not in all cases due to high levels of customer satisfaction.They went further to stress that customers often stick to a particular company, not because they enjoy the quality of its services and conc luded that musical composition customer satisfaction will remain the core of any organizational performance, it should not be the only goal (Bennette and Rundle-Thiele 2004). They pointed that attitudinal loyalty which customers sometimes display is another factor that enhances the performance of an organization. Given that they have considered attitude of customers to be critical success factor to business performance, it would be necessary to consider the impact of employee satisfaction on customer satisfaction.This view find support from the work of scholar (Oakland 2003) who opined that performance as perceived by the customer will always be the core of TQM model but it need not be limited to this and there should be an extension of it to other stakeholders performance measures. Other researchers gave their suggestions for the need of further empirical researches that would examine the impacts of quality improvement efforts on organizational performance (Yasin et al. 2004, p. 4 5).