Introduction:
The concept of quality has changed dramatically during the last decade or so. Few companies have the luxury of focusing on customer satisfaction to the point where making money is almost an afterthought. Efforts to satisfy customers obviously cannot be allowed to wipe out a company's financial resources, but improving customer satisfaction can stili be the company's driving force.
Importance of measurement:
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Today increasing customer orientation has forced companies to use a definition of quality in terms of customer satisfaction.
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This change, of course, means that the measurement of quality also has to be changed.
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It is no longer sufficient just to measure quality internally.
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Instead you also have to go to the market-place and ask the customers about their impression of the total set of goods and services they receive from the company.
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A number of companies, especially Japanese companies, have already realized this but many Western companies (especially European) are still lagging behind when it comes to quality measurements from the market-place.
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This has been demonstrated very clearly in our QED study. In Japan almost every member company of JUSE has a systematic way of measuring and reporting customer satisfaction.
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In Denmark this only holds true for two out of three comparable companies.
