Quality Improvement Plan Essay

Justification

The department would want to reduce customer complaints from the current 7% to at least 1%. For the department to achieve this goal, there is a need to have a quality improvement plan that will analyze the services offered by the department from the viewpoint of the customer. The service department must establish the root cause of the customer complaints and institute measures that are aimed at reducing complaints. By focusing on what is truly value-add to the customer, the department can manage to come up with meaningful and innovative outputs that will be suitable to the customer. Using the COPIS model, the department can transform the process by focusing on what the customer would be delighted with (Brown, 2019). This way the department will then consider the new outputs that may be more effective in reaching this goal. The quality improvement plan will allow the department to change its current focus to one that is aimed at satisfying the customer or one that puts the customer needs first. This will result in improved deliverables that will be beneficial to the customer, which will, in turn, result in the reduction of customer complaints. Using a quality improvement plan, the department will be able to self-assess its performance in the service that it delivers to its customers and determine the areas that the department can implement changes that will be focused on the customer and not on the supplier. Having done a self-assessment, the department can plan for future improvements based on its goals and current operations. A quality improvement plan will give the service department an insight on what the customer truly values and this can be used to improve customer satisfaction since the focus will shift to the customer. This allows the department to have an outside-in approach of looking at a process from the customer's perspective.

Approaches to Customer Service

Customer service approaches include focusing on customer retention, detail-oriented support, and meeting the customers where they live. We will focus mainly on meeting the customer where they live. This does not mean meeting the customers in their houses literally. It implies interacting with the customer using the bases that have been selected by the customer be it social media or on call. Reaching out and responding to customers based on the medium chosen by the customer will ensure that there is a faster response to the customer query and the customer can receive the message promptly. With a focus on the customer, a business must be able to meet the customer where the customer feels most comfortable (Carvalho, Magalhaes, Varela, Sa, & Gonçalves, 2016). Some customers would prefer to interact via calls and others will prefer social media. With a presence in both these avenues, the business can be assured that it can interact with the customers and the business is able and willing to attend to customer problems or queries.

Customer loyalty will have a positive impact on output satisfaction. This is because loyal customers will become repeat customers and the business will increase its outputs. Therefore, the business will benefit since the customers will be satisfied with the services received and they will be unwilling to go elsewhere for the same services. Customer loyalty will also lead to positive reviews of the business from the customers. This will, in turn, lead to new customers willing to give the business a try, which increases the sales of the business. As has been established, it is costlier to serve new customers than serving the old customers. For this reason, a business will benefit the most from ensuring that they have loyal customers than in trying to acquire new customers.

Output-Control and Measurement

With the aim of reducing customer complaints, the department can make use of process effectiveness measurement. This measurement will measure the performance of a process to a specified customer requirement, which in our case is reducing customer complaints. It is stated that every process must have a purpose that will include a winning value proposition to the customer. With a customer-centric approach, the department can define the customer, the customer problem that is aimed to be solved, and the unique way that the department can manage to solve this problem. Being able to control the output from the process will allow…

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…they are processed as coming from a single entity. This way the business can negotiate to have discounted rates that would result in reduced manufacturing costs. Suppliers can deliver inputs at scheduled times thus reducing the time taken to manufacture the goods. The right suppliers can be identified and contracted since the information is collated in one central location. With a centralized database of suppliers’ rogue suppliers can be identified and expunged from the database. This will ensure that the organization only deals with reliable suppliers who offer competitive prices to the company.

Conclusion

The service department needs to reduce the customer complaints it receives to ensure that the service or product being delivered meets the customer needs and requirements. The current focus of the department on customer assumptions can be attributed to these customer complaints. the department needs to come up with new strategies that are aimed at uncovering and identifying customer desires and requirements. This would mean the department is working by looking at the inside from outside. With this view, the department can get a clearer picture of what the customer would like and they can go ahead and make these improvements. The COPIS approach has been recommended because it offers the department an opportunity to initiate the process from the customer perspective and working with the requirements as proposed by the customers. Using this approach, the company can be assured that it will meet the needs of the customers and it can also improve its sales. Eliminating the assumptions that the team had regarding the customer allows the team to fully identify the needs of its customers and work towards meeting those needs. The team would then define the processes required to deliver those outputs and the required inputs and suppliers can be easily determined. This approach is beneficial in reducing the process sigma that is being used for input-measurement. Reducing this number will ensure that processes are working as expected and the results can be seen. Supplier management should also be incorporated. This will ensure the company reaps benefits from having a centralized supplier management system that holds all the key information regarding its suppliers. With…