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

Abstract

Too often, quality programs fail to improve quality because they concentrate on internal processes which do not affect the customer. This is at least partially due to the alienation of marketing from the quality movement, a situation for which both sides are partially at fault. Ideally, marketing should serve as the eyes and ears of the organization, linking the external customer to managerial processes. One way to do this is to organize the collection of customer satisfaction measures around the managerial processes themselves. This forms a natural bridge from the customer to management and allows management to track the impact of quality improvements all the way from internal process measures to overall customer satisfaction and market share.