Quality Management Principles: Part 1
The quality management system standards of ISO 9000:2008 series are based on eight quality management principles. These principles can be used by senior management as a framework to guide their organizations towards improved performance.
This is the first of eight articles which provide a general perspective on these quality management principles , each giving an overview of one of these principles and showing how they can be applied to form a basis for performance improvement and organizational excellence.
Principle 1: Customer focus
Organizations depend on their customers and therefore should understand current and future customer needs, should meet customer requirements and strive to exceed customer expectations.
How to apply the principle:
Ensure you fully understand and record what the customer wants, including any specialist knowledge you may have that affects the application of the product. Check that you are able to provide the service on time and to price before accepting the order. For telesales, read the order back to the customer for agreement.
Keep open channels of communication with your customers. Ensure they have the latest information on your products and have a formal and effective mechanism for dealing with complaints. Find out what they are looking for that you might provide but are not yet offering.
Find ways of monitoring and measuring customer satisfaction. This can be by survey, but recording the results of face to face or telephone conversations can be just as effective, and there may be data in your existing management information systems that is relevant (numbers of credit notes, levels of repeat business).
Key benefits:
By ensuring you always meet or exceed your customer's expectations, you will increase customer loyalty which will in turn increase revenue. This should increase profit even further, as it is much cheaper to sell more to existing customers that it is to find new ones.
By maintaining good communication links with your customers, you will be more aware of market opportunities, enabling you to respond in a flexible and fast manner, leading to increased market share and revenue.
By understanding fully what your customers want you can make more effective use of resources. If you get it right first time, there is no need to waste effort sorting out problems, and the customer will be happier.
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