English for Small Business Management. В. В. Мороз

      2.1.4 Exercise 4. Complete the following chart:

      Vocabulary Notes:

      to encompass – заключать (в себе);

      to tabulate – сводить в таблицы;

      undercover – тайный, секретный;

      to implement – осуществлять, выполнять.

      Customer Service and Total Quality Management

      Total quality management (TQM) is an umbrella term encompassing intensive quality control programs that have become popular in U.S. businesses in the past several years. TQM is rooted in the superior quality of Japanese products in the 1970s. Large U.S. manufacturers responded to the Japanese challenge with similar quality control programs.

      Increasingly, small manufacturing firms are feeling the need to implement TQM, partly as a result of pressure from the big companies they supply. Other small firms are interested in TQM because they recognize the potential for creating a better competitive advantage. TQM principles, therefore, extend beyond manufacturing to firms offering final consumer products and services. We will briefly examine the elements of a TQM program as they relate to offering final consumer products and services.

      Quality improvement starts with the culture of the organization. Consider the remarks of Jim Zawacki, owner and president of Grand Rapids Spring & Wire Products in Grand Rapids, Michigan – a small firm with 160 employees. Zawacki believes that "getting people to understand why we're in business" and building "trust, relationships, integrity, and communication" are the keys to developing the appropriate organizational culture for TQM. His firm is seeing results.

      Entrepreneurs should place top priority on creating and controlling quality customer service. One recent study indicates that small firms are keenly aware of the importance of customer service when they compete with big business. Approximately 70 percent of the small firms surveyed mentioned "customer service" as a successful competitive tactic. Also note that "quality of employees" was mentioned quite frequently. Obviously, employees are critical ingredients in a quality customer service program.

      Making customer satisfaction the number one priority is not necessarily as natural as it might seem. Business has used the phrase "The customer is always right" for decades, but have U.S. businesses achieved a high level of customer satisfaction? Here are some results of a survey for which one-half of the respondents were companies with 500 or fewer employees:

      1 Оnly 57 percent of the businesses rate "meeting customer needs" as their number one priority.

      2 In 62 percent of the companies, not everyone is aware of what customers do with the company's product or service.