will briefly examine the elements of a TQM program as they relate to offering final consumer products and services.
Quality improvement starts with the culture of the organization. Consider the remarks of Jim Zawacki, owner and president of Grand Rapids Spring & Wire Products in Grand Rapids, Michigan – a small firm with 160 employees. Zawacki believes that "getting people to understand why we're in business" and building "trust, relationships, integrity, and communication" are the keys to developing the appropriate organizational culture for TQM. His firm is seeing results.
Entrepreneurs should place top priority on creating and controlling quality customer service. One recent study indicates that small firms are keenly aware of the importance of customer service when they compete with big business. Approximately 70 percent of the small firms surveyed mentioned "customer service" as a successful competitive tactic. Also note that "quality of employees" was mentioned quite frequently. Obviously, employees are critical ingredients in a quality customer service program.
Making customer satisfaction the number one priority is not necessarily as natural as it might seem. Business has used the phrase "The customer is always right" for decades, but have U.S. businesses achieved a high level of customer satisfaction? Here are some results of a survey for which one-half of the respondents were companies with 500 or fewer employees:
1 Оnly 57 percent of the businesses rate "meeting customer needs" as their number one priority.
2 In 62 percent of the companies, not everyone is aware of what customers do with the company's product or service.
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