Insights for Improvement
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award provides insight into what is needed for continuous quality improvement. This award was created in 1987 by U.S. Public Law 100-107. Its purpose is to stimulate and reward companies for improving the quality of their goods and services. The application for the award has guidelines and criteria that can provide a benchmark for companies to judge how they are organized for quality improvement.
The guidelines and criteria form the foundation of an effective improvement effort. There are seven categories of effort supporting continuous improvement.; some are considered more critical than others, and are given different points or weights in recognition of this. In reality, an effective effort cannot exist without all seven components puling together.
Customer Satisfaction:
The component given the largest weight in the award is customer satisfaction. This category accounts for almost one-third of the total points allowed in the award, showing its importance. Criteria about this category reflect how a company addresses customer requirements and service relationships.
Key factors are:
- knowledge of customer requirements and expectations through interviews, surveys, and other means. A deep understanding of customers is needed so their wants can be turned into products.
- effective management and improvement of relations with customers. This would include providing customers with easy access to the company for help.An important element is establishing a long standing relationship going beyond selling the product.
- standards for the servicing of customers. This would include response time and other key service performance indicators.
- commitment to customers on warranties.
- complaint resolution procedure for customers and feedback of difficulty to company for preventing future problems.
- measurement of the satisfaction of customers.
- improvement of customer satisfaction.
- comparison of customer satisfaction with competitors.
