Why Improving Quality Doesn't Improve Quality (or Whatever Happened to Marketing?)

Résumé du livre

Argues that, all too often, quality programmes fail to improve quality because they are too preoccupied with internal business processes, and not preoccupied enough with the external customer; they have also failed to involve marketing people in quality improvement (for which both sides have to bear a share of the blame). Considers how the business process can be firmly linked to eventual customer satisfaction and market response by making quality more customer-directed; de- scribes steps in identifying and measuring customer needs, for making process quality improvements more meaningful to the customer and for making quality measures managerially meaningful, quoting a case example of the way in which AT & T approached such a strategy. Examines links between improved quality and customer behaviour, stressing that, ultimately, the customer is the judge of quality, and that total quality management depends on measuring both customer needs and marketing impact, and linking these to internal business processes.